


Bonded Through Blood

by Avistar123



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, F/M, Lesbian Vampires, Magic, Semblance (RWBY), Vampires, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25396309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avistar123/pseuds/Avistar123
Summary: Pyrrha had met many vampires in her career as a Huntress. Of all the vampires she had faced however, a vampire that didn't want to drink blood was certainly a new one as was the fact that this vampire was turned by the sole survivor of a family long believed to have been eliminated. Read on as Pyrrha attempts to restore Jaune and finds a far more sinister foe in waiting.
Relationships: Jaune Arc/Pyrrha Nikos, Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Kudos: 21





	1. The Most Reluctant Vampire

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth**

**Prologue:The Most Reluctant Vampire**

* * *

To hunt Vampires was a dangerous task, but it was also an honorable one filled with excitement and grandeur. However, Pyrrha Nikos was not in it for the nobility, nor the riches or even the honor. Pyrrha hunted Vampires because it was what she felt was right. There was no greater virtue after all other than hunting down those that would try to harm humanity. Despite this, Pyrrha wasn't one to believe that Vampires were beyond redemption. She had heard tales of conversions from Vampire to Humans and Faunus and while these tales were often filled with hardship and struggle, they all ended the same, the Vampire turned from the monster they once were into what they truly where. Usually.

But the lives of Vampire Hunters were often filled with peril and danger as was the nature of their work. It was not uncommon for there to also exist tales of tragedy and suffering as some less fortunate hunters and huntresses were often killed, converted or worse. Death was always a possibility in the work of Hunters, but it was one that they were accustomed to and one they were normally able to avoid thanks to their skills, abilities, luck and the importance of allies in their lives.

Such Allies had always been in Pyrrha's life after she came to Vale which offered her a fresh start away from her revered life as Mistral's best. Her life there was fraught with peril and fear as her status made her near inapproachable to those who wanted to help and her skills as a huntress constantly brought attempts on her life as the Underworld attempted to kill her for being the threat she was to them.

In Vale she found a new home, a place where she didn't need to worry that today might be her last day or when the next vampire family would strike. But that didn't mean Vale was by any means safe. Far from it as the land was filled with dangers all over and safety wasn't ensured even in the walls of the city. Less than rare, were instances of attacks inside the city by the Underworld but luckily the many hunters that the city sheltered were more the capable at defending it.

But of all the cases Pyrrha had seen of Vampires attempting to enter the city, she had never heard one of a Vampire that didn't want to drink blood. At least until today.

Pyrrha was walking down the street in the evening which lead to an inn where she often went to for some comfort food, when she heard a boy saying help from her left which lead to an alley way. Immediately, Pyrrha armed Milo and Akouo and ran into the alley to find a boy running from a hooded figure who seemed to just be running the boy's way. Arming her weapon with Silver Bullets, she fired at the hooded figure and shot at the figure who was merely stunned and started to panic in fear as Pyrrha let the boy escape the alley and turned Milo into a sword and was about to strike the figure before it grabbed her weapon in desperation and merely threw it and Pyrrha saw a small piece of the Vampire's shriveled skin, revealing that the Vampire was probably going to starve to death but despite this the Vampire made no attempt to sink his fangs into Pyrrha's neck which she hoped for. Instead the Vampire simply kneed her in the stomach and began to run.

Pyrrha quickly recovered and found the exhausted Vampire at the end of the road which left him stuck at the wall panting as he tried to recover from the effect of the Silver Bullets which had left the Vampire out of breath as well. Pyrrha took aim with her weapon and aimed at the Vampire's head but seeing the pitiable state of the vampire, Pyrrha felt nothing but sadness as the Vampire fell to his knees and begged for mercy.

Not moving a single step closer, Pyrrha asked the weakened Vampire "Who are you?"

"My name is Jaune Arc! Do you know where I can find Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie? Please, I don't want to drink anyone's blood or even want to do anything to anyone! I just want to live! Please don't kill me." Jaune frantically said.

Pyrrha asked further, recognizing the 2 of them as close friends "Why should I trust you?"

"I know you don't have any reason to believe me, but I chose to be turned into a Vampire because someone needed my help and as such a man and his wife named Ren and Nora wanted to help me out. I was supposed to get to them for my monthly Blood Bag, but I ended up forgetting the location to their place. I guess that's something that will only happen when I would have gone there a little longer than just 2 months." Jaune replied as he pulled out a transcript.

"2 months?!" Pyrrha asked as Ren and Nora hadn't told anyone about this. Not even her.

"Yes, here's the transcript of the receipt I got with them. Please, just don't kill me." The Vampire said as he dropped the piece of paper on the ground and faced the wall almost ensuring the fact that any attempt made by him would be easily intercepted by the huntress. Pyrrha read the transcript and sure enough it was an official print which had been dated back to the last month.

"Ok, but why do you need to go to a blood bank for feeding? Why not try to hunt the animals around for food?" Pyrrha asked.

"Drink blood from the living? EWWW! That's gross!" Jaune exclaimed as he nearly doubled over.

"Don't you realize you're going to have to drink blood from something eventually? Ren and Nora won't always be alive to help you out." Pyrrha said.

"Maybe but why should I try to take the lives of others when I don't need to? When no one's existence needs to be bothered by me, why should I try to bother others?" Jaune said which made Pyrrha wonder if Jaune was telling the truth or not.

Jaune had made sure that he was in every opportunity to convert the boy in the alleyway but still didn't drink the boy's blood. Pyrrha had given Jaune every opportunity to try to attack her and still Jaune chose not to attack her and even put himself in a position where Pyrrha would have every advantage meaning the boy was either a master deceiver or was truly as harmless as he said he was.

"Do you wish to be purified?" Pyrrha asked, seeing as how the boy would suffer if forced to live as a Vampire.

"Purify?" Jaune asked, scratching his head in a strangely cute manner.

"It's the process by which a Vampire can be turned into a human or faunus. It can be done easily if a Vampire is not too far gone into their conversion and given how you don't seem to be too old for a Vampire-" Pyrrha said.

"Wait, purify, I thought it was called Reingug or Reinigig or ah it was some strange language that I couldn't-"

"Reinigung. It's German for Purification and how do you know about that?" Pyrrha asked a little more suspicious.

"The person who turned me, she did it because-"Jaune started to say before he began to gasp and fell to the ground.

"Jaune! What's happening?!" Pyrrha asked, worried for what was happening to him.

"I haven't….. in a couple of weeks…. I need blood fast otherwise I'll… die soon." Jaune said as he began to start gasping for air.

Pyrrha knew that she had no chance to get the boy to Nora and Ren before he died. Unfortunately, there weren't many good options for the boy to heal his desire for blood. There was nothing living in the cold streets of Vale other than the 2 in the street. Leaving Pyrrha with only one option.

Pyrrha took Milo and cut a small piece of skin in her arm, deep enough to let some blood flow but not enough to cause some serious damage thanks to her aura. Placing her arm over Jaune, Pyrrha said "Jaune! Hurry and drink before you die.".

Jaune weakly tilted his head towards Pyrrha and Pyrrha let the blood from her arm fall into his mouth which thankfully was enough to stop him from dying but didn't stop the boy from falling unconscious. What Pyrrha also didn't notice was the strange feeling of companionship to the boy.

"Jaune! Jaune, can you hear me?" Pyrrha said as she cradled his head over her lap which he took.

"Thanks…. Need to rest… now." Jaune said before going to sleep and beginning to snore.

Pyrrha took Jaune's body over her shoulders and began to move towards Nora and Ren's place thinking over the strange events that had transpired.

* * *

Things certainly didn't get any less stranger when Pyrrha entered Ren and Nora's Blood Bank which as per Ren put it 'Was always open to anyone they called a friend.' Upon knocking on the door for 4 times, Pyrrha was greeted by a rather Ren who said "Pyrrha, it's good to see you, please let yourself in. who's the boy you have on your shoulders?"

"I suppose I should be asking you that question given how apparently this boy knows you and Nora." Pyrrha said as she laid out Jaune on a couch for Ren to see.

"Is he ok?" Ren asked, showing concern over his usually calm face.

"I think he needs a little more blood, but I don't think he's in any risk of dying from starvation." Pyrrha replied which reassured Ren who immediately set up an IV drip to Jaune's arm and began to slowly let blood return to the snoring Vampire who regained some of his pale complexion and also lost most of his shriveled state.

"When did you find him like this and where?" Ren asked as he checked Jaune's vitals.

"In the street, today at night. Who is he to you?" Pyrrha asked Ren who had sat down on a chair as he looked over Jaune.

"He's our first customer. He came to us after he basically showed up on our doorstep asking for blood. I had to physically hold Nora back from 'breaking his legs', although I doubt that's possible given Vampire Anatomy. After hearing about what happened to him- "Ren started to explain.

"What exactly happened to him?" Pyrrha asked, curious as to how she ended up with a vampire that was reluctant to drink blood.

"He offered himself up for a starving Vampire who needed a little more than just a cut's worth of blood to heal herself, also if I may…." Ren explained, before noticing the cut on Pyrrha's arm and took out a bandage, some cotton and an antiseptic.

Ren quickly treated Pyrrha's cut and made sure that she was no longer in any danger of an infection before resuming with his explanation.

"According to him the Vampire that converted him was supposed to meet him in a month at the location where she turned him and after she met him, she would purify him using some strange method. Problem is, she never came and since Jaune hadn't drank any blood purely out of his disdain for drinking someone else's blood, he began to starve to death until we found him."

"That's unfortunate. Is there anything else we can do to purify him?" Pyrrha said as she looked over the Vampire who just wanted to help and was now cursed to a life he didn't want.

"There is the ritual you and I know of which requires Vervain, Beowolf Essence from an Alpha Beowolf, the uncorrupted blood of the original converter and finally some water from another dimension which is thankfully available rather easily due to the rifts made by a certain forger who manufactures most of our equipment and also assists other young forgers who wish to learn how to craft weapons." Ren said.

"And how can we perform this ritual?" Pyrrha asked, wanting to help out Jaune who happened to have the opposite of what all Vampire Hunters had. Bad luck, none of the skills or abilities and very few people he could trust given how he entered the city alone and didn't even know the directions to the place keeping him alive.

"You need to place him on a bed of hemlock wood, then you need to lay the blood of the original Vampire at the place of his first conversion and bring the Beowolf Essence to his heart and then use a mixture of Vervain and the original Vampire's blood in order to start the purification. It's best that one person stays by the person's side as the ritual progresses as there have been some rather terrifying accounts of accidents occurring when Vampires were left alone." Ren calmly explained.

"Where's Nora?" Pyrrha asked now that she had some direction.

"Oh, she's still resting after having her front leg broken when attempting to fly with Magnhild. She always takes too many risks but that's something I've come to appreciate about her. Being willing to take risks has saved our lives in many cases but it's often led to some… rather unnecessary trips to the hospital." Ren said with a smile over his face. The 2 were, despite their stark differences, truly made for each other and their differences often served to make up for any weaknesses they had on their own while maintaining their close bond.

"Do you need our assistance with this quest of yours Pyrrha?" Ren asked, almost reading Pyrrha's mind as her thoughts also ran to Jaune. He didn't deserve to be turned into a Vampire, he was just unlucky and fell on some hard times in Vale. No one deserved that and being a Vampire Hunter wasn't just about killing Vampires and the occasional extra underdweller, it was also about helping out whenever you can. And Jaune was someone who could use some help. Jaune had a good heart and given the boy's physique and regenerating capabilities given his rapidly fast recovery rate as Jaune managed to recover extremely fast.

"No thank you Ren, I think you should spend some more time with your wife before you come with me on some dangerous quests. Thank for you everything you've done." Pyrrha replied, with a friendly smile before beginning to leave out the door with Jaune who had begun to wake to head out to the forge which was close to Ren and Nora's tranquil but lively home.

"As you wish. I wish you luck on your quest and I suggest you head to Mr. Xiao Long's forge before you head out, he said he had something for you." Ren said as he came with Pyrrha and closed the door behind her. "Keep Moving Forward."

"Where was I?" Jaune asked, sleepily as he leaned on Pyrrha for support.

"Ren and Nora's home, they gave you the blood you needed to survive and now we're headed to a friend of mine's house. I'm sorry for our first meeting. I didn't mean to be so…. Violent." Pyrrha said as she dragged both of them to Mr Xiao Long's house which was also a forge.

"Eh, it's fine, I've had some scarier encounters with a couple of monsters in the woods. Comparatively, that encounter was better than my first one." Jaune replied.

"Your first one?" Pyrrha asked

"It was the one in which I turned into a Vampire, I was in the woods out for a walk to clear my head and I met a Vampire there. She was really pretty but I don't think she liked me very much as she almost threw me out of the woods when we met. But she was so tired that she couldn't really do anything to me. She needed blood but didn't want to kill a human for it. But in her weakened state she was never going to able to get the blood she needed so I offered her mine. At first she declined but after seeing just how weak she was getting she agreed and then asked me to meet her in the forest in a week and if it took her longer than at least a month. I survived for the first few weeks but when she didn't come by the 4th week, I tried to find someplace where I could get blood without attacking anything and then I met Ren and Nora and well the rest is history." Jaune explained, which made Pyrrha angry at the Vampire who corrupted him.

"What did the Vampire look like?" Pyrrha said, through clenched teeth.

"She had white hair and eyes as cold as ice, she called herself Snow." Jaune said.

"Well then if we're going to help you out, then we need to find this 'Snow'." Pyrrha said as the forge came within her eyesight.

"Wait help me out?" Jaune asked his eyes hopeful as he looked at Pyrrha.

"We're going to turn you back into a human or faunus depending on who you were. For it we need a bunch of stuff including the blood of the Vampire who corrupted you."

"Wait wait Blood? You aren't going to ask me to drink it are you?!" Jaune asked, a little worried.

"No! I'll explain later but you don't need to do any drinking blood or even need to be conscious for the ritual." Pyrrha said.

"What ritual?!" Jaune asked, not eased at all by Pyrrha's words.

"In order to turn you into a human/faunus we need to get 4 things and a bed of hemlock. It's better if you're well rested when I tell you about it since it is a little…. strange. But It seems that Ren knows about it so it must have been successful and it doesn't seem to be too risky given the way he explained the ritual and based on the ingredients I don't think we have much to worry." Pyrrha quickly said hoping to reassure Jaune.

"Which are?" Jaune asked.

"Well we need Hemlock wood, Alpha Beowolf Essence, 'Snow's Blood', some interdimensional water from a rifter and Vervain." Pyrrha replied.

"What?" Jaune asked, perplexed.

"See what I mean, Jaune? I'll be able to better explain later. Right now, we need to get some supplies for the trip, and we'll get them from this forge." Pyrrha said as she came across the door of the forge.

As she knocked on the door in a rather special way she expected to be met with a hyperactive little blur. And she wasn't disappointed.

"HELLOOO PYRRHA!" said the silver-eyed girl known to Pyrrha as Ruby Rose who hugged her tightly.

"Hello Ruby, it's good to see you." Pyrrha said as she adjusted to the incredible strong hug and gave it back with a smile.

Out of all the young people learning to be a Vampire Huntress, Ruby was certainly one of the most driven despite her rather…. Eccentric and hyperactive nature. Her desire to be a huntress was only matched by her general enthusiasm and joy which made her fast friends with Pyrrha. That along with the fact that Ruby was extremely gifted when it came to tinkering and forging made her one Pyrrha's closest allies and one she could always depend upon for support.

"It's so good to see you! How have you been?" Ruby said excitedly as she unlatched from the hug.

"I've been doing well; I wonder how you have been as well?" Pyrrha said as Jaune tried to slink from view.

"Oh, I've been doing great! I just built my own custom scythe which is also a sniper rifle! It's called Crescent Rose!" Ruby said.

"A Scythe that's also a sniper rifle?!" Jaune said, shocked at the fact that a girl would be wielding such a weapon.

"Who are you?!" Ruby said as she jumped back upon seeing the Vampire.  
"Calm down Ruby, his name is Jaune and he's a Vampire who wants to become human again." Pyrrha calmly explained.

"You should have started with that! How else am I supposed to react with some hooded figure behind you? I thought someone was trying to attack you!" Ruby said as started to get up from the floor.

"Oh, I wouldn't really worry about that, Jaune here is as harmless as a fly." Pyrrha said as she gestured to Jaune who finally took off his hood and revealed a boy with blond hair and cobalt blue eyes.

"Hey! Pyra or Pyrrhan or-"Jaune said as he tried to say her name.

"Pyrrha!" Ruby said, correcting Jaune.

"Pyrrha, look at these muscles! You think I'm weak?" Jaune said as he hopelessly tried to flex his muscles which were strong but not well toned.

"Well, if our fight from before was anything to go off of, then yes." Pyrrha said, while Ruby and her chuckled at Jaune's attempt at showing his strength.

"I mean I guess that's true. I guess I really am as hopeless as everyone tells me." Jaune said as he looked down at the floor in shame, which made Pyrrha feel a bad for what she said.

"Jaune, I'm sorry, I didn't- "Pyrrha began to apologize.

"No, it's ok, I can see why I never was accepted to become a Hunter but now that plan's useless given how well it's been 2 tries already and I'm a Vampire."

"Not for long, I'm sure Pyrrha will help you out! Otherwise you wouldn't be here right now."

"Indeed Jaune, once assuming you want to still try to become a Hunter, I'll train you to become a Hunter."

"R-Really?" Jaune asked.

"Yes, I would, now come inside Jaune and let's get some supplies for a trip." Pyrrha said as she followed Ruby into the forge of their house.

"Ruby's where's Tai?" Pyrrha asked upon noticing that Taiyang wasn't in the house.

"Oh, he's on a mission right now and my sister will be back soon, assuming her new friend doesn't end up turning her in one of their 'displays of affection'." Ruby said.

"Wait, Yang's with a Vampire?"

"Yeah, but she seems to be nice one though, it does make it a little difficult to be around them when they show their affection so overtly!" Ruby complained as she tried to remove the images from her brain. No luck whatsoever.

"But anyways here we are! The forge!" Ruby said excitedly as she threw upon the door to reveal a large forge with plenty of equipment and a large gleaming red scythe at the main worktable.

"This is the place where me, my dad and my Uncle make stuff!" Ruby said as she took inventory of everything that occurred in the place. "Some of it's scrap, some of it is useless but most of it is serious butt-kicking weaponry!"

Pyrrha chuckled at the statement while Jaune looked around a found a piece of equipment that looked around the forge. Seeing all the weapons inside reminded Pyrrha of something she needed to ask Ruby which was actually the real reason why she had come to this place.

"Ruby? Ren told me that you wanted to talk to me about something. What was it?" Pyrrha asked Ruby who was still caught in all the cool weapons inside the forge.

"Right! Sorry I didn't remember." Ruby apologized. "My father wanted me to test my skills on tinkering something, so I made a bunch of attachments for a whole lot of weapons, then my father allowed me to work on Crescent Rose."

"So?"

"So, in honor of our friendiversary I decided to make you some attachments that may fit Milo and Akou Akou-" Ruby said as she tried to pronounce the shield name.

"Akouo." Pyrrha corrected with a knowing smile as she knew better than anyone just how difficult it was to pronounce the names of her weapons.

"Akouo right! I made some scopes for Milo and some extra guard rails and handles unto Akouo. They can be outfitted right now! Should I help you out with it?"

"I would prefer if you did and if you could can you find something that Jaune would use?" Pyrrha asked Ruby as she gave her weapons to the young crafter.

"Sure!" Ruby said as she turned into Rose Petals and showed up at Pyrrha's back where she began to tinker with Milo and Akouo to modify the weapon as needed.

Jaune on the other hand found a weapon lying among the pile of weapons on the floor and started to inspect it before he heard a soft step behind him. Immediately he turned around and found himself being threatened by the throat by a rapier by a Vampire with the exact description he had given Pyrrha.

**The one with hair as white as snow and eyes that were as cold as ice.**

* * *

**A/N: Hello everyone! I'm writing this fic since I had an amazing prompt given to me in my Discord Chat by a fellow writer and now I desperately wanted to write this story. I hope you all enjoy this one despite it being my first time going into Arkos. But anyways expect a little more time between chapters as I try to work a whole bunch of things out.**

**Keep Moving Forward!**


	2. White as Snow

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at RoosterTeeth.**

**Chapter 1: White as Snow**

* * *

"Hey Snow! Where have you been? Uh do you mind not pointing that rapier at my throat?" Jaune said as he tried to push the rapier's point away with his fingers, only to get cut across his hand.

"Jaune, just surrender and come with me right now." Snow said as she gestured for Jaune.

"Snow? Are you ok? You don't seem to be yourself." Jaune asked, a little worried as Snow's usually icy blue eyes had turned crimson, giving her a more unsettling aura.

"Oh, don't worry about me Jaune, my new mistress has removed all the flaws I had. In fact, I would say she's perfected me. She can do the same to you, Jaune. You just need to surrender control of your humanity." Snow said, immediately giving Jaune serious red flags about what may have happened.

The Snow he knew was not concerned with perfection of her flaws or even about sacrificing her humanity. No, the Snow he knew was not concerned with any of them and was certainly not going to let anyone control her.

"I'm sorry Snow, but you know I can't do that." Jaune replied as his hands shifted to a sword and shield and he felt Snow's rapier come close to his chest which he blocked.

"It's funny how you think you have a choice in this matter." Snow said as she feinted a strike and landed a strike against the side of Jaune's chest, ripping through his shirt.

"Help!" Jaune said as blocked a strike made by Snow which was in reality a feint to strike his knees with 2 quick slashes followed by an overhead strike which Jaune blocked and responded with an attempt to lunge at Snow which she gracefully managed to dodge and then delivered 3 quick stabs to his side and then after blocking a desperate horizontal swing by Jaune which slowed down by Snow's enchantment on her rapier which made Ice grow on his knees and sword.

Snow delivered an aura enhanced blow which threw Jaune against the wall knocking the wind out of his lungs. As he regained his vision he spotted Snow creating a wall of Ice that was rapidly growing over him, however it seemed that his cry for help did not go unanswered as Pyrrha and Ruby had come back to his aid.

"STOP Snow White or whatever your name is!" Ruby shouted which startled the Vampire who raised her hands and after waving them around created a wall of ice blocking her and Jaune off from the 2.

Immediately Ruby and Pyrrha shot through it with their weapons and Pyrrha threw her shield at Snow, which ended forcing Snow to duck. However, as she did so, she slid under the shield and after drawing a mark on the shield managed to make Ice grow on it.

After jumping from her slide she attempted to lunge at Pyrrha was dodged by the huntress bringing her close to Ruby's who brought her scythe in a horizontal cleave which she managed to push back against using her rapier's enhanced strike, while making Ice grow on it to make it heavier.

Pyrrha then brought her sword to her knees which she dodged by jumping and kicking Pyrrha which stunned her for long enough for Snow to attempt a lunge, which was blocked by Milo's blade before Pyrrha turned the blade and swung it to hit Snow in a horizontal slash which she dodged and attempted to quickly stab Pyrrha in her knees.

However, this manoeuvre proved ineffective as Pyrrha used her semblance to simply make Snow's weapon strike the ground instead before attempting to strike Snow's arm with Milo. Unfortunately, Snow blade being stuck on the ground meant the Ice enhancement in it had triggered making Pyrrha legs stuck, stopping her blade mere inches away from Snow arm.

Snow had no time to react however as Ruby had recovered from the attack Snow did on her scythe and managed to strike her with an upwards slash to her chest, followed by a downward cleave at her back which Snow managed to stop by catching the scythe blade in her bloodied claws and then using her ice magic to make the weapon's blade cold enough to force Ruby to leave her grip off her weapon.

In response, Ruby used her semblance and petal bursted her and Snow away from Pyrrha who managed to break the ice on her weapon and broke herself free. After landing on the Ice Wall she made to contain Jaune long, Snow took a quick second to catch her breath and after finding Ruby, kicked her in the shin and then in the neck which Ruby blocked with her hands, to trip up Snow in an awkward motion which led to them both being face to face, with Silver Eyes staring at mix of Crimson and Ice Blue.

Snow attempted to bite Ruby in the neck but found herself stopped by Ruby, who had managed to summon her weapon? Their breaths mingled from the proximity as both took in the scene. The weapon's handle was the only thing holding off Snow from sinking her fangs into Ruby's delectable flesh and gave Ruby enough time to kick Snow back as she struck her chest and send her back on her feet where she responded by taking Myrtenaster and bringing its point into the ground creating a spike that threw Ruby against the wall and had her stunned as Ice grew on her arms and legs locking them in place.

Snow walked up to the struggling forger, her rapier aimed at Ruby's throat but before she could even get the chance to act, Pyrrha, who had broken out of her restraints, managed to land 3 gold shots to the Vampire's chest and one to her head, which immediately broke her aura and confused her long enough, for Pyrrha to jump in and land a downward cleave on Snow's shoulder and then landing a slash to her upper chest and attempted to stab her stomach, only to be caught by Weiss's blade and slashed across her cheek.

Pyrrha called upon her shield and bashed it against Weiss's body, which made the previously well aimed strike useless and also stunned her for Pyrrha to land a brutal 4 slash combo to Weiss's legs, arms and back before kicking her away from her attackers.

She planned on just shooting the Vampire in the head, but didn't get the chance as the Vampire used Fire dust in conjunction with the Ice around the room to create a space for herself to escape using the ice mist to escape outside the forge which had opened it's doors into the public during the fight, courtesy of a stray bullet by one of Ruby's ricocheting shots.

"Ruby! Jaune are you 2 okay?" Pyrrha asked after shooting them out of their icy prisons.

"I'm fine although my pride brrr has been delivered a brrr fatal blow! I thought I made these weapons with the capabilities to break ice!" Ruby exclaimed before pouting which made her seem more adorable than annoyed.

"Jaune?" Pyrrha asked, after not hearing Jaune.

"Owww. I may need some…. brrr more assistance given… brrr how there's actually 2 walls of ICE here!" Jaune said from the second wall which was encasing most of Jaune's body apart from his head and hands which were frozen outstretched.

Ruby waited by the flames of the forge for Jaune to join her after Pyrrha broke him out of his and wrapped a piece of her sash around Jaune as a scarf and helped him across the room towards the forge.

"Was that Snow Jaune?" Pyrrha asked as the freezing boy warmed up next to the young forger who had put on her cloak as well and managed to stop shivering.

"She looked like her but that wasn't her. I know it wasn't!" Jaune replied sadly as he slowly walked towards the forge, still cold.

"Jaune she attacked you with Ice Magic, nearly converted Ruby and almost killed me." Pyrrha replied as she checked for any wounds on Jaune and Ruby. "Are you sure?"

"Yes! Snow would never let anyone control her! Not some mistress and certainly not someone who was willing to 'perfect her flaws'!" Jaune replied, agitated.

"Don't be so sure Mr. Arc." said a voice from behind them and as they turned, they found themselves facing the headmaster and current leader of the hunter division, Professor Ozpin.

"Professor Ozpin! It's an honour to meet you." Pyrrha replied.

"Please, Miss Nikos there's no need for such formalities. However, it is paramount that you know about the true identity of the individual you were facing." Ozpin replied before bringing up a green orb for them all to see which began to heal their auras. "This is Weiss Schnee, the last surviving member of the Schnee family, a family of Vampires long believed to have been exterminated 30 years ago."

"But she looked so young, how can she appear so young?" Ruby asked, not being the most knowledgeable on mystical matters, unrelated to forging.

"Vampires don't age Ruby, it's likely that Weiss has been alive for at least hundreds of years." Pyrrha explained.

"In an attack orchestrated by an unknown force, the Schnees were corrupted into Vampires some 50 or so years ago. The corruption sadly, made all of the members of the family insane, apart from the eldest and middle child who retained their sanity and as such survived the extermination."

"Who was responsible for their extermination?" Jaune asked, curious as to discovering the truth.

"All we were able to confirm was the fact that, an unknown force, possibly a group of rouge hunters led an assault and killed them all, apart from Winter and Weiss who were able to fight off their attackers long enough for Weiss to escape. Winter's whereabouts however, are unknown given as she disappeared during the battle. Ever since we have been hunting them both with many of our best efforts often resulting in failure."

"But why?" Jaune asked.

"There's a reason why the Schnees were attacked, one that we weren't able to identify yet, although we believe it has something to do with their blood which has had some rather unique traits in breaking bindings and curses. This makes them extremely valuable towards any such incantations and makes them an important target for anyone who wishes to unleash the sealed terrors on the world."

"Assuming you find her, what are you going to do with her?" Jaune asked.

"Well, we'll offer her a choice, join us and gain our protection, or be burned alive, since it seems that Miss Schnee has lost her ability to control herself against humans and Vampires, we cannot be sure of her compliance." Ozpin explained.

"Let us do it then. We'll handle her." Pyrrha responded, wanting revenge for what the young Vampire did to her.

"Miss Nikos, I would advise you to not be in a hurry as this particular Vampire has evaded us for decades. I fear that without proper caution, not even someone with your skills will be able to resist her corruption." Ozpin cautioned, worried for Pyrrha's health as he knew all too well as to what happened to some of his hunters that hunted the Vampire.

"She attacked Jaune! And she's probably going to do a whole lot worse if we don't stop her." Pyrrha replied.

"Indeed, which is why I will be sending this mission over to you and Mr. Arc since this mission is personal to you and is necessary for Jaune's reversion to his human side." Ozpin replied as he removed the green orb restoring everyone's auras.

"What about me?" Ruby asked, curious as to why she wasn't allowed to join in on this adventure.

"Miss Rose, as far as I know you aren't really the most experienced in terms of combat like Miss Niko, nor do you have any need of joining in on this conflict like Mr. Arc. I fear that placing you in combat would be placing you in harm which I wish upon no one in this city, especially a forger who's responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of one of the best Huntresses in my command." Ozpin said, which made Ruby look at the ground with disappointment.

"It's okay Ruby, you'll get your chance one day. Once your combat training finishes then I'm sure you'll be going on more exciting adventures. Maybe we'll even team up for one." Pyrrha said, as she placed her hand on Ruby's shoulder to comfort the young forger who looked up to Pyrrha with a sad smile.

"Alright Pyrrha, just make sure you come back to this forge so that I can tinker everything you'll need for your journey. Make sure you come back okay?"

"You know I won't let some Vampire put me down no matter how old it is. And thank you for everything you do." Pyrrha replied as she hugged the forger, which was a little awkward given their height difference.

"You'll be going tomorrow at night. In the morning I'll be giving you some information and a tool you can use to find Miss Schnee. As for Jaune, I suggest you stay in Miss Nikos's home for now." Ozpin replied.

Jaune and Pyrrha looked at each other blushing slightly as they realized they had to share a room.

"I believe this day has gone on for long enough. I suggest you all take some time to rest." Ozpin said as his orb he created turned into a portal that lead into his office.

"That man is extremely strange." Jaune remarked making both Pyrrha and Ruby laugh from his tone.

_In Pyrrha's home_

"Well then Jaune, do you want anything to eat?" Pyrrha asked as she entered her modest home, which was more like an oversized room. Perfectly serviceable for one person although 2 people would take a little bit of rearrangement.

"Oh, not really although I would like some blueberries. They were kinda the only thing I ate since I became a Vampire and well, I gained a craving for them." Jaune replied, scratching his head in a oddly cute manner.

"Would you like me to get some blueberry jam and put it on some bread?" Pyrrha asked as she looked into the cabinets.

"Thanks, Pyrrha!" Jaune said with a genuine smile, one that made Pyrrha feel warmer than any other one she had gotten in Mistral when she won her first championship.

She didn't quite understand why but after spending more time with dorky Vampire, she felt a strange level of attraction towards him. Perhaps it was the fact that she wasn't being held on a pedestal like with everyone else, courtesy of Jaune not knowing her from before as Mistral's champion of the Arena.

As such, every single interaction she had with Jaune always felt genuine and not faked due to her 'celebrity' status.

She felt so protective of him when Weiss attacked him just an hour ago, she almost never felt like that with anyone else when they were threatened. Of course, she was worried about Ruby during the fight but that was more out of sisterly instinct and also compared to Jaune, Ruby had, _some_ combat experience and was even training to become a full-fledged huntress.

Pyrrha would need to jumpstart Jaune's training given the unknown horrors that would await them on their quest. But she would be more than glad to. In the walk they took to Pyrrha's home Jaune had also revealed a little bit more about himself.

Apparently before he was a Vampire, he had aspirations of becoming a huntsman like his father and grandfather and while he certainly possessed the heart of a true huntsman, he was severely lacking in terms of raw skill or proficiency. In fact, the only thing Jaune was proficient in by any means was a sword and shield much like Pyrrha did but that was more out of random choice given how it was the first weapon he picked up.

When Jaune came to Vale, his efforts to become a huntsman were sadly put on hold when he was rejected by the Academy due to his lack of skills and as such, he was left alone to wait. He couldn't find much work in Vale either due to his skills or in his case, lack thereof lead to him meeting Weiss in the forest and the rest was history.

Although, one thing she didn't understand was why he was so adamant that Weiss wasn't the type vampire to attack innocent humans or even convert others unless she was forced to for her survival. She saw the vampire attack her, Ruby and Jaune so viciously and without any mercy. Hell, she even tried to convert Ruby!

But that didn't matter right now. Right now, it was the time to rest and relax, not to worry about some unknown terror that threatened her life.

' _Although I should probably activate the protections just to be sure.'_ Pyrrha thought as she lit the torch which activated all protections in the house.

"Ah!" Jaune gasped as he clutched his stomach.

"Jaune! Are you ok?" Pyrrha asked, as she rushed over to the vampire who sat down on a wooden chair, not letting go of his stomach.

"It hurts... in my stomach. I feel... like something's eating my apart from… there." Jaune explained as he removed some of the chest armour covering his upper chest, revealing something from Pyrrha's past.

"I think I need to remove something from one of my protection wardsss." Pyrrha said as she recognized the embarrassing reminder of her past.

"What?" Jaune asked, wondering why Pyrrha was blushing upon seeing his shirt.

"Just hold still." Pyrrha said to the boy as she removed a part of his shirt to reveal his stomach and applied a gel which identified Jaune as an ally and not as an enemy.

"Thanks for the assistance but what was it about my shirt that made you so embarrassed?" Jaune asked. "It's just Pumpkin Pete."

"Well I used to sponsor the brand for some time. I think they even made a cereal about it." Pyrrha said as she grabbed a bandage and roughly applied it to Jaune's gash which had come from the Protection Spectre.

"Ohhh, I see oh! Careful! That area still stings." Jaune exclaimed as the gel burnt against his skin.

"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha replied.

"It's ok! It's ok! Thanks a lot for helping me out. It really means a lot to me to know that someone believes in me." Jaune replied hoping to reassure Pyrrha, which luckily, he was able to.

"It's easy to believe in someone genuine. Although given by how you were trounced in the fight by Weiss or Snow, I believe you need some training and make you a little more effective against magic users." Pyrrha said, a smile coming on her face as she tried to make that moment of loss for Jaune more humorous.

"Yeah, I think I'll need that. Thanks again. I haven't really met a lot of people who care in that sense for my faults, so it feels really nice to know someone's willing to help me become something more." Jaune said to Pyrrha, which made her feel much more special to Jaune.

"Those people always exist in life; you just need to know where to look. Although, I think you should probably go rest given how the sun's coming up and I would hate for you to miss our first training session together because you ended up getting toasted by the sun." Pyrrha remarked, hoping to earn a laugh from Jaune who thankfully obliged.

"Goood point, but what about you? You haven't really taken any rest for quite some time." Jaune said, his tone revealing his worry for Pyrrha's overall health.

"I'll be fine Jaune, I've gone days without sleeping now go get some rest!" Pyrrha said, reassuring the sleepy vampire who lay down on the bed and entered into Vampire's Rest, creating a black shroud which covered his body.

As she observed the sleeping vampire, Pyrrha simply looked at her weapons and realized she had to still pay Ruby a visit.

**But she was looking forward to the visit, since that might be the only normal part of her day tomorrow.**


	3. Beyond the Surface

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 2: Beyond The Surface**

* * *

Setting out for Ruby's forge after taking some rest, Pyrrha quickly went over the modifications she wanted for Milo and Akouo, given how the redhead had mentioned that she had a few plans for the weapon. Pyrrha always looked forward to whenever Ruby had a weapon idea or wanted to tinker with something given as the young forger had a particular knack for finding out extremely creative applications for weaponry. It had become one of her hallmarks by the time Pyrrha had become one of Ruby's closest friends.

It was after all Ruby who made some necessary modifications to provide Milo it's javelin form and made Akouo's sight, allowing Pyrrha to aim more accurately while retaining her defense. How she managed to fit a thermal and night vision scope into the shield was completely unknown to Pyrrha, but it had certainly provided results and as her father always used to say, results never lie.

Knocking on the door, in the same way she always used to, Pyrrha found the redhead almost waiting for her at the door, ready to surprise her with a hug. How she managed to do that, was a feat only explainable by the Gods but it still made for an extremely warm greeting. Although, the hug did feel much weaker today.

"Hi Pyrrha! You're here for the modifications?" Ruby asked, seeing Milo and Akouo slung on Pyrrha's back.

"I would like to see what plans you had for Milo and Akouo, like you had intended before we were distracted by a… certain vampire attack." Pyrrha replied.

"Yeahhh, hopefully we won't be derailed this time!" Ruby said, before heading the forge with Pyrrha by her side.

Both girls walked down the hall, where Pyrrha glanced upon a picture of Ruby with her whole family back when she was a baby. The picture was… cute in many people's eyes but unless they wanted to meet Crescent Rose face to face, most people would stay away from commenting on Ruby's antics from her childhood.

"Where's your sister Ruby?" Pyrrha asked upon finding Yang and remembering she hadn't yet come back.

"Oh, she went on a hunting mission for some kind of monster hunt with her friend. My dad's still on his mission though so I've just been stuck at the house making some more and more improvements to Crescent Rose." Ruby replied, absentmindedly as she walked over to the doors leading to the forge

"Ruby, are you sure you're not feeling lonely?" Pyrrha asked, worried that Ruby might not be getting the adequate amount of time from friends and family as she deserved.

"Eh, it's fine Pyrrha." Ruby replied, her tone telling her she was most certainly not fine.

"Ruby, do you want to talk about it?" Pyrrha asked, slowing down Ruby before she entered the forge.

"What 'it' are we talking about, Pyrrha?" Ruby asked, as she slumped downward and sat by a workstation.

"Whatever's bothering you Ruby." Pyrrha said as she sat down next to her.

"Okay fine! I'm not feeling fine! I'm just really disappointed in myself! I forgot to activate the protections in the house and ended up letting that vampire in-" Ruby blurted out, surprising Pyrrha with the amount of pain in her voice.

"Ruby, you're not being fair to yourself-" Pyrrha tried to say, hoping she could at least reassure Ruby before being again cut off.

"But I still didn't remember to activate those protections and look what happened! A vampire snuck in and Wiss, or Snow or whatever nearly killed you and captured Jaune!" Ruby continued, her outburst nearly breaking into tears as Pyrrha realized just how badly Ruby had been beating herself up since the incident. "Maybe, if I had been a better huntress or just a little more attentive, then maybe you might not have been in any danger. I'm sorry!"

Hearing Ruby's outburst, Pyrrha immediately wrapped her hand's around the youngster's head and hugged her close, reassuring her "Ruby, you could never have accounted for the fact that you would be attacked by a vampire, let alone one of the older ones in existence. And you don't need to be sorry about anything, you're a great huntress, even in training. I saw that in the way you fought. Don't forget, you were the one who held off that vampire when I was frozen in Ice."

Ruby relaxed slightly upon hearing Pyrrha's words, immediately making the invincible girl feel happy in knowing she had at least healed some of her friend's pain.

"I also know that when you do become a huntress, you'll far outshine us all. Just keep moving forward Ruby and be yourself. Because that's all that matters. Being true to yourself." Pyrrha said, as she ruffled Ruby's hair similarly to how Yang would do it.

The act had the intended effect as Ruby was feeling a lot more like herself again, if not with a few more self-doubts to deal with but they would burn those bridges when Ruby was ready.

"So, you wanted to talk about the modifications?" Pyrrha asked after Ruby broke away from the hug and looked on the workstation where Crescent Rose was kept.

"Oh! Right, well I had a bunch of plans for Milo and Akouo. Let me just bring up my chart and… that should be fine." said the young forger as she quickly projected her scroll onto a holoscreen, making Pyrrha's jaw drop from the list of attachments she was working on.

"Uh, Ruby? "Pyrrha asked, wondering how on earth did she have so many attachment plans.

"We could give you a variable zoom on your sight on akuo, ako, I'm just gonna call it Aku now." Ruby said, again failing to pronounce Akouo making Pyrrha giggle slightly. "Or I could give you a Slammed Receiver to reduce the recoil, maybe we can put in a mod to make Milo shoot two shots in one trigger pull or we could put boosters in Milo's javelin or-"

"Ruby, I just need something that can help with finding and taking down the Schnee Vampire." Pyrrha quickly said, hoping Ruby would calm down.

"Okay, then how about a gold plating over Milo, since it's well… incendiary towards Vampires and some more silver bullets?"

"That would be perfect."

"All right! Come over by evening today and the weapon will be ready!"

"Thanks Ruby! And in case you ever need someone to talk to, just let me know okay?" Pyrrha said to the young forger, her hand on her shoulder in a reassuring manner.

"You got it! Stay safe!" Ruby replied excitedly, as she quickly got to work on Pyrrha's weapons in the forge.

Pyrrha smiled gently as she bid goodbye to her weapons and left them in Ruby's capable care, fully confident in her abilities to make a good weapon. Upon leaving the house however, she couldn't help but feel that something was off about Ruby's behavior.

* * *

**_In the evening_ **

It was done! Ruby had finally finished gold plating Milo and was now planning on melting down more and more of the silver which was thankfully in abundance on Remnant. She only wished she could say the same for Gold since having fire rounds could come in extremely handy against vampires, especially when they used Ice Magic like the one from before had.

Setting down Milo on the table next to it's shield which Ruby had absolutely no idea how to pronounce, she gathered some more of the steel and placed it into the forge for melting and upon getting the molten metal, promptly placing it in the bullet fabricator where it would be converted into bullets.

Now all she had to do was wait for Pyrrha and then she would be off on her quest to hunt down 'Snow White' and then… it was back to forging and cutting trees. Which was starting to get rather boring.

Ruby always had so many ideas for weapons, but no one would let her go crazy with any of her weapons, apart from her own which didn't really have a lot of things that could be tinkered with. Sighing in disappointment, Ruby sat down on the bench outside her forge and just looked out towards the horizon watching the beautiful sun's colors meld into the horizon.

It made her wish she wasn't stuck in school, learning how to be a huntress and that she could go out for crazy adventures with Pyrrha, or Yang or Ren and Nora. It sounded so much fun to just go out and about in the woods to hunt monsters and save people. Just like her mother had.

But Ruby was never going to be the hunter her mother was, right? After all, she nearly cost Pyrrha and Jaune their lives because of her failure to activate a simple switch and it showed given Ozpin's words after the conflict. It was clear that Ruby still wasn't good enough. And at this rate, she might never be.

So many bad thoughts ran through the girl's mind that eventually she decided that she needed to spend some time away from her home. After all, it's not like she was going to have any company given how Yang's mission still hadn't come to an end and neither did her dad's leaving her at their house.

So, she left her house after leaving Pyrrha a message that her weapon was ready using her scroll and leaving said weapons out on the workbench, which she had given Pyrrha access to, she left towards a very familiar location with Crescent Rose by her side.

Quickly running across the forest, Ruby used her semblance in short bursts to find the path. Along the way however she heard plenty of roars and well, those couldn't be left unattended.

Arming Crescent Rose, Ruby headed out to the source of the roars and found a lone Beowolf. Quickly taking aim with her sniper, Ruby shot out at the Beowolf, landing a shot to the head, which alerted the location of 3 more to her location, as was evident by their growling.

Immediately using her semblance and placing her scythe blade towards the neck of one of the Beowolves she pulled at let it's head fall to the ground with a violent seize before quickly shooting down the other Beowolf which was to her right.

The last one however, pulled out the trunk she was behind and using it like a weapon, bashed her into the trunk of another tree, making her aura flicker once.

Recovering from the impact, Ruby quickly found herself in the eyes of a charging Beowolf and saw it jump and lunge towards her, looking to make mincemeat of the young huntress.

However the Beowolf would only find empty air as Ruby split into 3 petal blooms and promptly got out of the way of the Beowolf, letting it's claws slice through the tree trunk and landing 2 shots to its back before it turned around, revealing it's bony head where Ruby shot, hoping to land a killing blow, only to find that armor plating was much stronger than what she had estimated earlier, finding herself punched into the air by the Beowolf.

Landing in the branches of a tree, Ruby promptly fell to the ground, her aura now flickering rapidly from the impact given as she had been using semblance as well, leaving her near exhausted. And given from the low growl she heard from the edge of the forest; she knew her time was probably up if she didn't get out of these branches.

'Come on! Come on! Stupid tree, work with me here!' Ruby thought, as she rapidly cut the branches holding her in place, hacking away at them blindly with Crescent Rose and falling to the ground with a quiet "oof!"

Unfortunately, by the time she had managed to get down, the Beowolf had already caught up with her. Just as it was about to raise it's claws and rip Ruby to shred's however, one of the cut branches fell atop the Beowolf's head, stunning it long enough for Ruby to shoot her gun in it's chest and send it back before rising to her feet and landing a slash that took away both the legs off the Beowolf.

Latching her scythe blade against the Beowolf's neck she fired with Crescent Rose and decapitated the beast as it fell to the ground, signaling the end of the conflict.

"Thanks for the help and I'm sorry I called you stupid!" Ruby said to the tree above her, feeling extremely guilty for the words she said and took a deep breath.

After letting her aura restore itself for a few minutes, Ruby carried onto her location and found the cliff side. The cliff side where her mother's gravestone lied.

Had she come here an exceedingly crazy amount of times? Probably. In fact at this point she wondered if Ruby had always been like this in every reality, given how one of her forging mentors did talk about their being alternate realities, she wondered how other versions of her were like with their mothers, assuming the theory was even true.

Perhaps it was a little concerning as to why she loved coming to this place and this place only, but she couldn't help it! Whenever she felt too burdened by everything, she always came back to this place. Despite knowing her mother was long gone, having at least something to remember her by did help her out whenever she felt especially down on her luck.

But today, the gravestone wasn't shining as brightly as it used to in the moonlight. Perhaps even her mother was disappointed in Ruby.

"Hey mom. I don't know if you're there or not right now, it's pretty late after all but I came here to say hi and uh, talk for a little bit about everything that's been happening." Ruby began as she awkwardly sat down beside the gravestone, hoping her spirit was still inside it.

"It's been a little while since I last talked but I uh, had another one of my tests happen to become a huntress and I think I did pretty well on it. At least given by the look, Professor Oobleck gave me I think I did pretty good on it. But after that I had a lot of forging assignments to turn in which thankfully didn't take me too long but I still had a lot to go through. It did give me new ideas for weapons, and it did give me the inspiration to make my own weapon! It's called Crescent Rose and it's a scythe that can turn into a sniper."

Simply letting out those words had felt so good to Ruby to just let everything that had happened since the last few weeks. The gravestone seemed to glow a little brighter as she said those words, so Ruby felt a little more validated about her feelings.

"I did get attacked by a vampire yesterday though. Pyrrha had come with one of her friends she met, although I think there's something going on between them. But anyways I got attacked by some vampire that used ice magic and then tried to kill me and Pyrrha. But we fought her off and then I got told off by Ozpin for… wanting to hunt down the Vampire. Although, Pyrrha did come back and helped me feel a little better about it." Ruby continued as the gravestone began shining even brighter, now feeling a little uncomfortable.

"But still, I can't help but think about what Ozpin said and think, what if I'm not cut out for this? I made a really stupid mistake and… it almost killed Pyrrha and her friend and me. Plus, both dad and Yang have been well rather busy, and I guess there's no point mincing words now, I feel lonely. I wish I had someone other than my friends or a partner even just who I can well hang out with and just relax. Safe in the knowledge, that they'll never go and that I can always count on them to be around. I know I have some very good friends, Pyrrha's one of them, but I still feel like something is missing." Ruby finished as she noticed the light on Summer's gravestone was flickering wildly which was certainly very unnerving.

As were the Crimson and Sapphire eyes watching her from the trees.


	4. Clear as Ice

**I don’t own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 3: Clear as Ice**

After overhearing the young forger’s impassioned speech about missing someone to the gravestone of her mother, Weiss couldn’t help but scoff at the young girl. Speaking of your sorrows to a gravestone? What would that accomplish?

Not that it mattered to Weiss, after all she was interested in the girl’s eyes, which would be of extreme importance to her mistress. The vampire she turned would be of importance to her later, but right now the silver eyed girl was far more important than any foolish vampire who was reluctant to even drink blood. For what purpose she didn’t know but that was unimportant to her. All that mattered was pleasing her mistress.

And she would gladly do it.

* * *

As Pyrrha watched the beautiful sun begin to set out in the horizon she looked onwards towards her bed, finding Jaune still sleeping peacefully and snoring. It seemed the vampire was quite the heavy sleeper, but she didn’t blame him, given the day they all had yesterday.

But Pyrrha knew her quest had only just begun as almost immediately she was tasked with hunting down Miss Schnee and figuring out her intentions, which to Pyrrha was clear as day, she wanted to kill Pyrrha and Ruby; to kidnap Jaune. But for some reason Ozpin believed that there was something going on beyond the surface level and she knew that for all his eccentric quirks, being able to see through people was one of Ozpin’s best. Hence, she trusted his judgement enough to grant Weiss a fair chance at explaining herself, but if she put any more of her friends at harm, then all restraint would be thrown out the window.

When she checked the time, she found her scroll had a message on it from Ruby. Upon checking it, Pyrrha found out that Ruby had gone out into the forest on her own which normally wouldn’t have made Pyrrha so worried but given the recent events, she sincerely hoped for Ruby’s sake that she would be a little more careful today.

Heading out of her house, Pyrrha made her way over to Ruby’s forge and sure enough, she found Milo and Akouo on one of the workbench with a shiny gold sheen and several clips of silver bullets, just as she had asked Ruby. Upon inspecting the weapon, she wondered about what other modifications Ruby had in mind for her weapon. Given Ruby’s natural expertise, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that she had some more than creative ideas for what she could do with the weapon.

After leaving the forge with her weapons, Pyrrha quickly headed back to her house to check on Jaune. She was after all planning on training him with some practice weapons she used to spar with some friends but she was surprised to find that Jaune himself had come and given his panting state, he was probably out of breath.

“Jaune? What happened?” Pyrrha asked, concerned as to why Jaune left the safety of Pyrrha’s home.

“ _Huff huff_ Today’s going to be a blood moon.” Jaune replied, out of breath.

Pyrrha’s eyes went wide as she realized that Ruby decided to ‘go out for a walk’ was the same night that vampires and werewolves were at peak levels of aggression, meaning it was completely unsafe for anyone to be out in the forest. This was no time for a walk alone.

“I need to get to the forest right now. Ruby’s not safe.” Pyrrha replied, placing her shield behind her back and putting her sword in her holster, getting ready to move out into the forest.

“Wait, I’m coming too.” Jaune replied, surprising Pyrrha.

“Jaune, the blood moon will affect you too, in fact you need to head to a bloodmancer right now, before the moon takes its hold on you.” Pyrrha responded as she realized that Jaune could be a major threat to her if he came along without any treatment.

“Alright I’ll do it, but I am coming with you. I’m not going to sit back and watch as you end up heading into a forest filled with Grimm, werewolves, vampires and god knows what eldritch beasts. Please, let me help.” Jaune begged, hoping Pyrrha would give him a chance.

“Alright but after we head to Ren and Nora since they’re probably the only 2 in Vale who would be willing to help you out.” Pyrrha replied as she began to move towards Ren and Nora’s home hoping she wouldn’t be too much of a bother.

Luckily for Jaune, today was a much better day to meet with Ren and Nora as Nora had recovered enough to at least start walking with a cast on her leg and a crutch.

“Hey Jaune and Pyrrha! How are you all doing?” Nora asked, her injury not stopping her cheeriness one bit.

“Hello Nora! Are you doing better?” Pyrrha asked, her tone as polite as ever.

“Yeah! Ren’s been incredibly supportive. He thinks I might be able to start walking in about a week due to my aura. I can’t wait to get back into the swing of hunting things!” Nora replied with a bright smile on her face.

“What brings you to our house?” Nora asked, curious as to why Pyrrha and Jaune had chosen to come to their house.

“Uhm, there’s a blood moon? Pyrrha said a bloodmancer might be able to help me out with making sure I don’t start biting anyone’s necks.” Jaune replied, with a faint smile.

“I see, I’ll call Ren over and see what we can do for you. Don’t worry Jaune, Ren knows a lot about blood magic. I’m pretty sure if he wanted to, he could probably… ah he’s the expert, I’m the Stormcaller after all!” Nora replied, before attempting to hastily move but nearly tripping.

“Careful Nora, I’m pretty sure Ren doesn’t want you to put yourself in further harm.” Pyrrha said, helping Nora recover her balance and after making sure she was safe.

“Thanks, Pyrrha!” Nora said in gratitude and signaling to Jaune to follow her.

Following Nora led them to inner chambers of the house where Ren was intently working with blood on some altar.

“Rennn! We have guests!” Nora exclaimed, slamming the door open, making Ren nearly drop a vial of blood.

“Nora! I thought I told you to knock.” Ren said, his tone not scolding but more playfully amused.

“Aww but where’s the fun in that?” Nora replied cheerily, before quickly heading down to give him a quick peck on his cheek.

“Who are the guests?” Ren asked, giving a smile to Nora.

“Jaune and Pyrrha! They said they needed some help with the blood moon that’s happening today.” Nora replied.

Ren’s eyes filled with worry as he looked up to the stairs and thankfully saw both Jaune and Pyrrha waiting politely at the doorway.

“Thank the Brothers you arrived. I was going to look for you too after I was done with this ritual.” Ren said as he gestured for the 2 to enter the chamber.

“You know Ren, I didn’t expect you to have such an… inviting place for a ritual chamber.” Jaune replied, as he came down the stairs.

“You need to put this necklace on right now, Jaune. It’ll help you out with controlling your bloodlust during the blood moon.” Ren said, as he opened one of the cases containing a necklace with a red gem in it. “Also, worth keeping in mind, is if you end up sucking the blood out of a living creature, we won’t be able to turn you back any longer. So, try to maintain as much control as you possibly can. I’ll get you some blood bags to make sure you won’t need to drink any blood.”

“Thanks Ren. Anything else I should keep in mind?” Jaune asked, as he accepted the necklace on his neck.

“Not much really, just make sure that necklace doesn’t break and make sure you don’t need to drink any blood this moon.” Ren replied as he went over to his wife, to make sure she was comfortable sitting down near the altar.

“What are you working on Ren?” Pyrrha asked, curious as to what had been keeping Ren so busy.

“He’s been working on a cure for Vampiric Bloodlust!” Nora replied, answering for her husband.

“Well it’s not really a cure, it’s just something that can help out for when Vampires end up losing their minds, the necklace I’m giving you Jaune, is a little more experimental, hence the blood bags.” Ren replied, further clarifying on the matter.

“Wait wait experimental? Are you sure this one works?!” Jaune asked, a little concerned as to the thing that was now hanging around his neck.

“The necklace I’ve given you can break, the orbs I’m working on don’t have that problem. Figuring out how to stabilize these blood orbs has been the real challenge. Hence, the necklace is experimental.” Ren explained, reassuring Jaune a little about today.

“Thank you, Ren what can we do to repay you?” Pyrrha asked with a smile.

“Just come back home safe and sound. And good luck on your mission.” Ren replied, surprising both Pyrrha and Jaune.

* * *

“Are we going to talk about the fact that- “Jaune began as both her and Pyrrha headed over to Ruby’s forge to find a weapon for Jaune.

“Yeah, Ren tends to have surprisingly good hindsight, but I just wanted to make sure if you were ready for this.”

“Of course, I’m ready!”

“Jaune, this isn’t just some normal hunt in the forest. When we go out today, we will be expecting vampires, werewolves and hundreds other beasts along with the Grimm. This time there is no escape. When we find those things, we will have to fight them. I just don’t want to see you get hurt anymore. Not after what all you’ve been going through on your own.” Pyrrha replied, concern seeping into her voice for Jaune.

“I know you don’t want to see anyone get hurt. That’s why you’re going after Ruby. But you also need to think a little bit about yourself. What happens if you are the one who ends up getting swarmed? What if you are the one who needs help?” Jaune asked.

“I asked to become a Huntress. I knew the risks with this job. You still haven’t. So please, think about this before you make a decision.” Pyrrha replied.

“I already have. My entire family is made of Huntsman and Huntresses. They all have known the risks to their job. And I do too. So please, let me help.” Jaune answered back, finally giving Pyrrha some piece of mind as she now had a vampire on her side. An incredibly physically inept vampire yes, but a vampire, nonetheless.

“Okay, first thing we need to do then is to get you a weapon. Along the way I’ll train you in some basic swordsmanship because even though I know you want to help; I wouldn’t want you to miss a vital swing or two.”

“Vital swing?”

“Exactly what I mean. Don’t worry when we head into the forest, I’ll train you but right now we need to find you a weapon.”

“So, we’re in Ruby’s forge to find a weapon?”

“Well, I can’t have you going into the forest without a proper weapon and I’m pretty sure Ruby won’t mind if we borrow one of her weapons.” Pyrrha replied, with a coy smile as they entered the forge. “So, tell me Jaune, what’s your type?”

“Uhhhhhmm girls?” Jaune replied, a blush somehow coming onto his pale face.

“What?! No! I meant what type of weapon do you prefer if you have a preference?” Pyrrha replied, a tiny blush coming on her face.

“Ohhhhh… well I think a sword and shield would be good.” Jaune replied, covering his face in embarrassment.

“Alright then, let’s take a look at Ruby’s stash.” Pyrrha replied, as she looked onward to the pile of weapons laying haphazardly in a corner. “There’s about 5 different sets of swords and shields.”

“How did she even get these weapons?! There’s a polearm, a battleaxe, shortswords and god knows what other weapons.” Jaune replied, shocked at the copious amounts of weapons.

“Oh, this is only the first stash, I think Ruby’s got 2 more with some of them containing magical weapons and others having ridiculous attachments.” Pyrrha replied casually.

“What has that girl been doing with her time?!”

“Either tinkering with her weapons or working on broken weapons to fix them or just taking apart and putting together weapons found on adventures her family undertakes. Otherwise, she’s training to become a huntress. In fact, I would say she’s in her last year.”

“That’s impressive.” Jaune mused, in awe of Ruby’s diligence.

“Indeed, but let’s get you a weapon first. You said you wanted a sword and shield, right?” Pyrrha asked, using her semblance to take out some weapons and hold them in front of Jaune.

“Yeah.”

“Well then, here’s 3 from this stash.” Pyrrha said, as she brought up a curved shortsword with a circular shield, a longsword with a rectangular shield and the weapon Jaune used the night of the attack.

“Wait, the third one looks familiar.” Jaune said, as he pondered over why it felt like he knew the weapon.

“Take a look at it then.” Pyrrha said, as she set the sword down in Jaune’s hands.

Jaune’s hands ran over the blade as he tried to get a feel of the weapon and as he gripped the sword by it’s guard, he finally recognized it.

“This is an old heirloom of my family. It went missing generations ago when my grandfather tried to hunt down a lich.”

“Ruby told me she found it from one of her father’s adventures. It must have been a recovery mission against a dead lich.”

“How strange is it that after all those years of searching, I manage to find something priceless to my family in the most ordinary of places.” Jaune said with a smile, as his hands more comfortably rested on the guard of his heirloom.

“Fate brings us together in strange ways Jaune. But it is what we do with the fate that we are given, which tells us who we really are.” Pyrrha replied, with a reassuring glance at the huntsman to be who now beamed at her with confidence.

**“Well then, let’s make the best of our fate.” Jaune said, as he triumphantly displayed his weapons, ready to make mincemeat of the monsters that dared to attack him and Pyrrha.**


	5. Corruption

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 4: Corruption**

* * *

Pathetic.

Pathetic was the only thing Weiss could call her target's attempt at struggle. It was honestly embarrassing that this was the creature who managed to stop her in her house. Her skills were untrained, and her fractured emotional state meant knocking her unconscious was as easy as plucking a rose from the ground which was oddly appropriate given the girl's name.

It was unfortunate that she wasn't allowed to turn her victim, but her mistress demanded her target to be human, and so she had to provide. Simple as that.

But to call her situation safe, would be reckless to say the least. Especially during a blood moon. Whatever the case was she needed to get to Ewiger Gletscher sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, that would mean she needed to find a much more secure location than just the forest.

As she began to draw the symbols on the floor, she felt a soft murmur coming from the ground. Looking over to it she noticed her victim had regained consciousness.

"Hush. Don't make me do something you'll regret." She said as she pointed her rapier at the girl who looked up at her.

"Owww, what are you doing? Why am I tied up?"

The vampire scoffed upon hearing the girl's demands but decided to humor them given how there was plenty of time to talk.

"Don't worry you're headed to a rather special place."

"Will there be cookies?"

"What do you think? Of course, there won't be any cookies you dolt!"

"Awww but still, think you can get me out of these bindings? They are pretty tight, and I think my hands are starting to hurt."

On hearing the naïve little girl's words Weiss couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of her words. Who honestly thought that their kidnapper would want to free them of their bindings?

But much to her surprise when she turned around to look back at her target, she saw that her victim had begun to escape which given her speed would've been a problem for the vampire, had it not been for the rose petals she left.

' _Alright then, you decided to make things a little more interesting Red. Shame about your semblance betraying you like this though."_ Said her mistress speaking into her mind, hijacking Weiss's thoughts and mind again. _'Go after her and bring her to Ewiger Gletscher. No distractions.'_

Forcing herself to clear her mind, Weiss's thoughts suddenly felt unscrambled as if someone had just cleared up the constant mist in her mind, but her freedom soon subsided as her mistress's words broke the feeling of control and returned her to her obedient state.

Somewhere deep in her mind, she had managed to regain control, even if for a brief second. All she remembered were vague details of eyes glowing like cinders of a flame, a red dress and a green haired companion who befuddled her mind. But soon her thoughts were again taken over as the same singular objective entered the vampire's mind.

Forming a path of glyphs to follow the rose trails, Weiss jumped onto the first glyph and rushed out into the forest.

* * *

' _Red like Roses._

_Red like Roses.'_

Were the only thoughts going through Ruby's mind as she ran away from the vampire from before. Seeing just how quickly the vampire was able to move and use Dust to overpower her, Ruby knew she had no chance in a fight against her, leaving only one option. Escape.

Blindly rushing into the forest was hard work however, and soon after, Ruby found herself forced to stop near a time, breathing heavily with exhaustion as she tried to get a feel for the situation around her. Crescent Rose was luckily taken by Ruby during her escape meaning she could at least defend herself.

However, the unusually reddish tint of the moon and sky wasn't helping her nerves. Neither was the constant howling in the night which seemed to be coming closer?

Of course, it was just Ruby's luck that she chose to go out for a walk during a blood moon. She probably should've checked the lunar calendar like her dad always told her to!

Piledriving the scythe blade of Crescent Rose through her bindings, Ruby broke through them and grabbed her scythe, aiming it at the woods, waiting for the wolves to arrive.

The first one came out through the woods snapping its maw in the air, hoping to catch Ruby, only to find a sniper shot going through its head. The second one tried jumping from the trees and managed to dodge Ruby's second shot. But it's failure to understand the predictability of it's lunge led to it getting decapitated by Ruby's scythe which had its silver edge armed.

Ruby didn't enjoy performing such acts against these beasts but her other alternative was death. So, she was just going to have to live with the act.

The next 2 that came however, were much more dangerous. Two werewolves with their fangs and teeth bared at Ruby, inviting the young forger to fight.

Accepting their proposal, Ruby responded with two shots against both the weres. Dodging both, the werewolves took off in opposite directions, aiming to rush towards the young huntress together. Using her semblance, Ruby repositioned and rushed forward to meet the one on the left.

Coming out of her petal burst, swiped at the beast's legs only for it to lunge and catch Ruby to the ground. Again, using her semblance, this time Ruby escaped its clutches and after grabbing hold of Crescent Rose, she placed its blade to the beast's throat and pulled.

Its head came off clean as some of the blood sprayed Ruby's now worn out attire. But there was no time to ponder on that as the second werewolf had long come charging after her, it's huge hulkish frame threatening Ruby as it pounced.

A swift dodge allowed Ruby to land a cleave as she jumped away. The werewolf turned menacingly and dug its claws into the ground. Seeing the wolf prepare to jump, Ruby attempted to dodge, hoping to punish the wolf for its predictability.

However, she was blindsided as the ground beneath her rumbled and sent her tumbling to the floor. Grabbing onto Crescent Rose, Ruby slashed blindly behind her, hoping for one lucky shot. Sadly, she was a second too late and the werewolf was able to slash her in the back once before grabbing her weapon and tossing it like a toy.

Ruby tried to use her semblance again, but this time the werewolf was ready for it and managed to bite onto her ankle as she petal bursted and threw her into the trunk of a tree.

Dazed, Ruby looked up to find the werewolf pouncing on her, her hands shifted to the grass around her as she looked around for her weapon, only to find it out in the field. Ruby closed her eyes as she waited for the wolf's teeth to clamp down on her neck, unable to use her semblance due to her aura being exhausted completely.

But as she felt the wolf's teeth about to clamp down on her throat, she heard a swish and a squish sound.

Opening her eyes, she found only sapphire and crimson eyes looking down at her with an annoyed expression, with a rapier through the beast's head.

"Satisfied with your work? Now come with me unless you want to end up as food for these beasts." said the vampire in the same icy tone.

Suddenly howls of wolves erupted all around them and upon looking around her surroundings, Ruby and her companion were surrounded by werewolves.

"Uncultured beasts. Grab your weapon, we're going to have to fight these things." The vampires said under her breath before creating a glyph that sent Crescent Rose back by Ruby's side.

Apparently, this icy vampire _did_ have a heart inside!

* * *

"You know, I expected there was going to be a lot of fighting just not a lot of running." Jaune said, as he ran through the woods with Pyrrha by his side.

Thankfully his vampiric curse did have an upside to it, he didn't get tired at all, unless it was from lack of blood, which is why he made sure to drink up on the blood bag after he left Vale with Pyrrha. He still had a couple more blood bags to go.

Thankfully, the necklace was keeping him in check and made sure he didn't end up biting anyone. Although he still felt the odd twitch or two to gouge someone's throat.

"Well we all don't have speed semblances like Ruby does, some of us actually have to run all the way to our targets. Although maybe some horses may help." Pyrrha replied, a little out of breath herself.

The two had been running for nearly an hour at this point and as such were probably in the mood to take some rest. Hearing footsteps however, Jaune's ears immediately perked up.

"Pyrrha?"

"Yes Jaune?"

"I don't think we're alone in this forest." Jaune replied, making Pyrrha draw her weapon in anticipation.

"Did you hear something?" Pyrrha asked.

"In the trees, I'm hearing something running along them." Jaune relayed, as he pinpointed the location to the tree branch in front of them.

Aiming her rifle at the tree branches, Pyrrha activated her infrared scope and aimed into the canopy. Her scope found three werewolves looking down at Jaune and Pyrrha. Taking the shot almost immediately, her silver bullets managed to catch one of the weres in the heart, making it drop to the floor, dead.

The other two jumped down immediately and brought its claws down on Pyrrha. Blocking the attack with her shield, she slashed the beast's arm off, making it howl with pain as the gold on Pyrrha's weapon also burned the beast.

The second one came up behind her, but before she could even react, Jaune bashed the wolf with his shield. His efforts immediately backfired though as he was thrown into the trunk of a tree. Instinctively bringing up his sword, he managed to rip through some of the were's hide but was unable to do much damage to it.

The were attempted to bite Jaune in the neck, only for him to duck under its jaws and roll under it. Grabbing his shield on the ground, he raised it against the wolf who managed to remove his jaws from the trunk. Managing to block the initial push, he was pushed back.

In response, Jaune took out the werewolves' feet from under him, using his shield and jumped back. Only to bump into the other werewolf who picked him up like a toy and threw him onto the branch of a tree.

"JAUNE!" Pyrrha cried out as Jaune was suddenly impaled through the chest by a wooden branch.

Enraged, Pyrrha cut off the werewolf's other arm before plunging her blade into the beast's heart, making it fall to the floor as it's burning heart finally extinguished its soul.

However the other werewolf, was still active in the fight and Jaune looked in horror as the werewolf in a blind rage knocked away Pyrrha's weapon and shields with blinding speed and suddenly pinned her to the floor, aiming to crush her throat with its fangs.

Jaune struggled against the branch he was on, desperately trying to break the branch. In his desperate struggle however, the clasp of his necklace broke, and his bloodlust was released. With a roar of pain, Jaune winched the branch off the werewolf and jumped down, landing on the werewolf's back and gave it a taste of its own medicine.

Latching his fangs into the werewolf's neck, Jaune drained the beast of most of its blood, his bloodlust only sated when he felt the werewolf's pulse begin to wane. Jaune jumped off the beast's back retrieving his sword and after stabbing its knee and slashing across it's back, he attempted to behead the werewolf.

But the Bloodlust affected both creatures and as such, Jaune's sword was blocked by the werewolf's hand and was clawed in the cheek and the chest before being kicked away into a tree.

But this time, Pyrrha had recovered enough of her aura to recall her shield which crashed against the beast's head, stunning it long enough for Pyrrha to also retrieve her sword and behead it, ending the fight.

"Jaune?" Pyrrha asked nervously, as she looked over to Jaune, realizing the full weight of his actions.

"The necklace broke. Luckily, I got enough blood from that wolf to not need anymore for at least an hour." He said, as he sat down by the trunk.

"Jaune, I'm sorry." Pyrrha said as she rubbed Jaune's back.

"Don't be, I made my choice. Honestly, I'm fine with being a vampire for the rest of my life, I just have to be nocturnal, make sure I go to Ren and Nora who are really nice people some days." He replied to Pyrrha, hiding his pain at now fully losing his humanity.

Pyrrha however quickly saw through Jaune's tone. The true pain he was hiding at his disappointment.

"Jaune. What's going through your mind?" Pyrrha asked, making him sigh deeply.

"You wouldn't understand Pyrrha."

"This is the same thing that's gotten Ruby in trouble! I know something's bothering you. Please let me try to help."

Taking a deep breath, he finally broke the silence.

"I guess I'm just scared. I'm losing my humanity for good after all. I'm now just a soulless bloodsucking monster." Jaune said.

"Jaune, the soul arises from the body, but it isn't defined by it. It doesn't matter what you are, as long as you live true to yourself, you can never be soulless. And do you really think a bloodsucking monster would care about saving someone." Pyrrha said, comforting the weary vampire.

"Thank you. But why do you care so much?" Jaune asked, with a faint smile.

"I… I see something different in you. When we first met, I thought you were just a simple vampire trying to suck the blood out of a child. After getting to know you however, I can see you're so much more than that. You care far more for the people around you than you do yourself and despite you not being… the most cut out for being a hunter, you still try your hardest. How can I not see something special in that?" Pyrrha said, as she held Jaune's hands in her own.

"But plenty of people try their hardest, even Ruby does, what's so different about me?"Jaune asked.

"Ruby's determined because that's something she wanted out of the deepest desire of her heart. You do it not because you feel the need to be a Huntsman, but because you care more for the people around you. You do this because you want to protect people. Not because you find some higher calling but just to because you want to be a good man. That's what makes you different, that's why I care so much about you." Pyrrha explained, comforting both of them. "That and you're quite funny and just a joy to be around."

"Well I try." Jaune replied with a genuine smile.

Suddenly both of them heard a distant howling from the woods.

"There's an entire pack of werewolves further out in the woods! And a human and a vampire?"Jaune said, as he recognized the howling as more threats

"Ruby's scroll is leading towards the woods as well." Pyrrha said, as she pinged her scroll off Ruby's finding her location.

"Come on Pyrrha let's go! Ruby's stuck between a pack of werewolves and a vampire!" Jaune said, as he realized just how much danger Ruby was in.

**Grabbing Pyrrha's hand and helping her up, Jaune rushed towards the forest with Pyrrha by his side, ready to meet the monsters that dared to threaten Pyrrha's friend with their combined strength.**

* * *

**A/N: I dunno how many of you were expecting Jaune to stay a vampire but now there's no hope of him staying human. Ah well, also Ice Queen's not a baddy just under the influence of one. Whoever guesses it get's a cookie from the cookie gods! Hope you all enjoy this chapter and Keep Moving Forward!**


	6. Lost Friends

**I don't own anything from Team RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 5: Lost Friends**

* * *

Chaos.

Chaos in a battlefield was normally something concerning for any normal huntress. Fortunately, Ruby was no ordinary huntress. At least not yet, but that was beyond the point!

Taking out her sniper, she quickly shot ahead into the group, landing shots against four of them before the first one managed to come out against her. But before she could even try to slash the beast's head off, a fireball came out from over her shoulder and set the beast ablaze. Turning around, she found the vampire from before staring at her with her mismatched eyes of which the crimson was strangely, fading?

"Well what are you staring at?!" the vampire snapped, unaware of the fact that a werewolf was sneaking up on her.

Dashing through her, completely ignoring her whining about running away, Ruby dashed ahead and decapitated the werewolf which finally shut her up.

"Watch your back!" she said, as she rolled and fired out two more shots, connecting to two other werewolves. Luckily, Ruby had long since switched to silver bullets allowing her to maximize her effectiveness against them. The bullets luckily managed to pierce both their hearts.

To her right, she slashed again and swiped off the legs of another eager werewolf. Suddenly however, Ruby felt a huge weight upon her back and sharp claws swiping at her stomach. She tried fruitlessly hoping to elbow the beast off, but it stayed on relentless, until one more came and tackled her to the ground.

Now with two werewolves on her, and her aura fading rapidly as the beast attacked her. She tried using her semblance, but the beasts kept on slashing. Any attempt she would make would keep on getting caught by them.

She then saw the werewolf rear its fangs and go for the killing bite. As she looked up to see the jaws of death approaching, Ruby merely closed her eyes and waited for the teeth to sink into her flesh. To finally snuff out her painfully short life.

But the bite never came, instead she watched as both the werewolves attacking her had been frozen to ice. Before she even got the chance to swing her scythe and break them into splinters, the vampire from before came and turned them to splinters with her rapier.

"If you're done being reckless, I suggest you think about your next move very carefully before attacking." She said to her, her voice still cold as ever, apparently forgetting about the fact that Ruby practically _saved her life_.

'What does she get off of being such a bit-difficult person? Oh wait, she's a vampire, would she have even been able to feel pain from something trying to bite into her neck?' Ruby thought, as another werewolf attempted to make use her momentary distraction as an opportunity for attack. 'Yikes! Note to self, introspection during combat, BAD IDEA!'

Ducking under the werewolf and getting scratched in the cheek, Ruby sliced off the werewolf's arm before finally guillotining it with Crescent Rose. Landing back on the ground with a soft 'oof!' she again scanned the scenario around her and found her ally, fighting off three werewolves who were casting magic?

'Now they have magic too?! How is that fair?' she thought out as she ducked a stray ball of purple energy that was deflected towards her.

Taking out her sniper, she checked her magazine and found herself with only two more shots left. Quickly aiming at the two almost about to finish casting, she pulled the trigger and sent them both to the floor dead. Now her gun was practically useless without the silver to give it a chance against them. Apparently, the wolves also realized this as now they rushed towards Ruby without any fear of her shooting them down.

Luckily her vampiric ally? Had her back and took out two of the wolves with fireballs, leaving only four for Ruby to deal with on her own. Using her semblance midjump, she effortlessly, maneuvered around a pouncing werewolf and decapitated it with a strong pull. Turning in midair, she brought her scythe's silver hook, down onto another unlucky werewolf's head. Using the momentum, she brought herself down and swung her scythe blade like a hammer, knocking out the other two to the ground.

After removing the wolf's carcass from her scythe blade, Ruby slashed one of the beast's throats and turned quickly, hoping to secure a quick kill on the other. She was instead met with a claw barrage which she managed to slash once in the stomach, making her aura flicker rapidly, before she managed to block its second strike. Seeing its primary source of attack hindered, the wolf opened its mouth and headbutted Ruby, stunning her for the beast to strike her down viciously with four more attacks and then a kick, throwing her against a tree.

Seeing an opportunity to kill, the beast came up to her and after clawing her face once, breaking her aura and then it bit down on her leg. Howling in agony, Ruby looked up to see the sick face of satisfaction on the werewolf, who sneered at her. "All that effort and yet your fate will still be the same. Ironic."

But before it could revel in its handiwork, the werewolf suddenly gasped and howled. It tried to turn and strike behind it, only to find its efforts fail, as glyphs surrounded him and a blizzard of snow surrounded him. When the storm passed, all that was left was ice.

"What did I say?!" the vampire snapped at Ruby.

Right as she was going to respond however, Ruby doubled over in agony, clutching her stomach.

"I told you not to go about recklessly attacking, these creatures are relentless right now! But NO! You just had to go about attacking like a crazed wolf!" The vampire continued, completely unaware of the fact that something was happening to her.

Screaming out in pain, Ruby's head started to feel a sharp spike inserted into it. She screamed out, her mind starting to shatter as the pain overwhelmed her. Her vision began to fade as she felt something grow all over her body.

* * *

Rushing into the woods to follow Ruby's signal was proving to be quite the difficult task given the amount of foliage that stood between Pyrrha. But slowing down meant spending more time putting Ruby at harm, and also increasing the likelihood that her and Jaune may get ambushed by Grimm, werewolves, vampires or something worse.

So, she hacked and slashed through the dense covering desperately clearing a path forward. Her partner, Jaune was still following her, sword and shield in hand. Looking to him, Pyrrha could very easily discern his disappointment and shame in learning his transformation was now permanent. But she could be nothing but amazed at how quickly Jaune put aside his own troubles for Ruby's.

He hadn't stopped once to tell Pyrrha to slow down like before and this time was rushing forward, trying his hardest to maintain his pace. He had already exhausted another blood bag, leaving only one left, which would hopefully sustain till the end of the night. Strangely, the talk she had with Jaune from earlier seemed to have opened something far more powerful inside him.

As she cut through another clearing, she again looked back to find Jaune and this time found his injuries healing, as was expected of a vampire. But strangely, there was also a white glow coming from the location, which upon further inspection, revealed his aura. The talk Pyrrha had with Jaune managed to unlock it. What possibilities this opened up for Jaune, Pyrrha had no idea but now she was feeling at least a little more relieved with knowing that an active aura would at least be able to keep him safe in the daylight.

"How much further is her signal?" He asked, to which Pyrrha looked down at her scroll, finding Ruby's blip not too far off.

"Not much further, we need to keep going straight." She said, to Jaune who nodded at her as they rushed forward, finally coming to stop as a wall of branches and bushes slowed them down. Seeing the unnatural growth, Pyrrha stopped herself immediately as she recognized a pair of symbols.

But before she could do anything to warn Jaune about them, he came rushing in with his sword and cut right through it. Eyes widening in horror, she looked as she found Jaune fell into a pitfall. Screaming out his name, she looked into the pitfall. It seemed to have been a cavern and the formation was unnatural enough for Pyrrha to understand that this was created through something's interference.

If so, that meant it must have had an exit.

Jumping into the pitfall herself, she slid down the rocky cavern, using Milo as a rifle as she slid down to check for anything that dared to attack her. Aside from the razor-sharp rocks however which grazed her aura, there seemed to be nothing particularly dangerous. Breaking her slide with a jump and slamming the ground, Pyrrha looked around her surroundings hoping to find her partner.

"Jaune! JAUNE! Where are you?!" she screamed out into the dark cavern.

After receiving no answer, she decided to get some insight into the location they were in, so she loaded up a magazine of Burn Dust rounds before firing into the darkness of the cavern, managing to set ablaze a few twigs with her rounds.

With some semblance of sight restored, Pyrrha looked forward into the cave, hoping to find her partner before something went horribly wrong. Walking carefully into the cavern she took in as much information as she possibly could, finding the place littered with webs and acid. Not a good sign.

As she continued deeper into the cavern the webs became more and more common and the rocks at this point had even been colored a sickly green. Moving with caution she found herself at a ledge overlooking a lair. And as she had begun to suspect, it was the lair of a stalker nest. And based on how Jaune was currently trapped, one that had been active for a decent amount of time.

* * *

Facing down the four-legged reptilian monsters, Jaune was very quickly starting to wonder how long it would take for him to break down these chains. Perhaps if he used his aura, he could do something but at this point he didn't want to risk doing something that might get him killed. He was fully aware that the tingly white sensation was strongly connected to his soul and given his current predicament, any rash decision might end up doing more harm than good.

Scanning the location, he wondered just how he could use his strengths to his advantage here. He was fully aware that his own physical strength could far exceed every one of these stalkers, but the dust in their bodies and their toxic pincers could hold him in place long enough for them to overwhelm him. To his right he noticed a set of breeding pods, most likely filled with immature stalkers.

To his left, he noticed a massive figure, resting. Trying to make it out, only revealed a faint blue outline, shrouded in mist. But judging off of size, he was pretty sure that this beast was the leader of this group. Which did mean that all he needed to do was break out of his current bindings, avoid getting pincered or overwhelmed or being eaten by one of the many ravenous immature stalkers and then kill it's head which was significantly stronger than all of them.

In hindsight, he realized just how ridiculous his plan actually was, especially given how he wasn't even armed with a proper weapon and if the reports on these creatures were true, their blood was toxic, meaning even attempting to suck out their blood would fail horribly. Looking back at the entrance to the cavern he noticed his sword and shield lying haphazardly right below the ledge and above it was Pyrrha?

"HMM! MFHMHFM!" He tried to speak, having his voice muffled by the webs covering his face. However, it seems his struggle was picked up by her. Gesturing to his sword and shield using his legs, he hoped Pyrrha could find some solution as to how to get out of this situation.

And luckily for him, she did. Using her semblance, Pyrrha grabbed the shield and sword and thrust it towards him, cutting through the webs holding him in place before outfitting him with his shield as he fell, which he promptly used to smash a very confused stalker's face in.

The jig was up now, it was time to fight. Taking out his sword, he blocked a pounce from one of the other stalkers before attempting to stab its soft underbelly, which wasn't covered with scales protecting it. But the beast was too fast and quickly it brought down it's pincer on Jaune. Reeling from the pain, he gasped as he fell to his knees, clutching his shoulder. The wound stung as the venom inside burned his insides like acid and while that wouldn't do much to a vampire whose aura was often disabled, it certainly left him helpless to the mercy of the stalkers.

Looking up, he was able to see Pyrrha once again, this time, seeing her battle against the stalkers that attempted to imprison Jaune. She moved with blinding speed and vigor in her heart as she lashed out against the beasts, cutting off their pincers, blocking their claws and pounces and masterfully dodging and weaving in and out of their attacks and responding with her own.

But out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one pincer had gone unnoticed by Pyrrha, and given from where it was pointed, it was going to strike her dead in the spine. Fighting his pain, Jaune forced the tingling sensation of his aura into his wound, and allowed it to burn his shoulder, making him scream in agony as the wound painfully healed and his aura restored his shoulder.

The stalker from before, still confused had no time to react as Jaune blindly slashed it into ribbons. Getting up slowly, Jaune quickly gathered his sword and upon seeing that same pincer begin to coil up in anticipation of hitting his partner, Jaune mustered all his might and threw his sword.

Right into Pyrrha's shield which she deflected and sent towards the pincer, cutting it right off and making the stalker threaten her scream, revealing its location to the two of them. Rushing in to meet the stalkers, he grabbed his shield again and slammed it into one of its frilled mouths before also using the edges to cut into the scales of the beast.

But before he could even follow it up, he was suddenly pounced by another stalker and was left lying on his back as it opened its mouth revealing a set of razor sharp teeth designed to rip through cloth and went in for Jaune's neck. The strike connected but his vampiric nature meant the only pain he felt was towards the acidic saliva that was now burning his soul.

His scream managed to attract Pyrrha's attention however, as suddenly Jaune saw the beast take a shield to its face and found his sword by his side, allowing him to strike the beast's soft underbelly and kill it. Taking back his shield he successfully blocked another pincer from the previous stalker. But before he could even do anything to respond, he noticed a familiar orange and gold javelin sticking out of it's back.

"Are you okay?" she asked, pulling him up with her hand.

"Stinger's roughed me up, but I think I'll be fine." He replied, pulling himself up. "Ah!"

"Jaune, you just unlocked your aura, you need to take it easy." Pyrrha warned, making Jaune's shoulder's slump.

"We still need to get out of here and we're nowhere near doing that, in fact we still have to get past that monstrosity! And even then, we don't even know where Ruby is!" Jaune said, pointing to the huge stalker, whose pincer had been cut off.

"Ruby's signal is directly ahead of this cavern, there must be an entrance at the other side."

"So what do you suggest Pyrrha? I don't think we can take it on with just the two of us."

"Maybe but, if we can send it out of its cave, we can weaken it massively. If I use my gravity rounds, I might be able to push this beast out of this lair and grant us a straight shot to Ruby."

"Is there anything you want me to do?"

"Just hold on tight."

* * *

"What's the matter with you? Are you so emotionally unstable that even a few harsh words turn you into a self-deprecating pile of- "Weiss snapped angrily, as she turned the screaming girl to face her and found her clutching her head? What was wrong with this girl? First, she ends up rushing into the forest during a blood moon to apparently have a heart to heart with her dead mother then she ends up becoming a target for an entire pack of werewolves and then gets bitten by one!

Eventually however, the girl stopped screaming which should've comforted Weiss, as she would no longer have to worry about this girl's incessant whining. But seeing as how fur was starting to grow all over her body and her screams of pain were turning into howling, she would have no choice but to finish this right here right now.

Plunging her rapier into the ground, she willed ice to grow all around the werewolf, locking it in place and also forming the first part of a teleport glyph. Simultaneously a wall of rock grew, covering Weiss as she finished casting her ice, protecting her from the shadow wolves' attacks.

However, Weiss knew all too well that the wolves would eventually be able to break it down, meaning her protection was only temporary to say the least. As more and more Shadow Energy accumulated in the wall, the number of cracks grew in the rock wall. After seeing one of those cracks almost reach the ground, she shattered the wall and using her glyphs sent them towards the wolves, impaling all the wolves that were casting.

With no more wolves left to stop her from finishing her escape. Walking over to her target, who had graciously not moved, she continued to cast her portal to her safe haven. Closing her eyes and again plunging Myrtenaster into the ground, the glyph on the ground began to glow as a portal began to form in front of her.

Sweat beading on her face, as she fought to keep the portal open, Weiss was able to keep the portal active in a stable state. All she needed to do now was push her rapier into the rift. But as she was about to plunge it into the rift, her ears perked as she felt a soft thud from behind her.

Ducking immediately, Weiss turned and rapidly stabbed out, attempting to strike her attacker's knees only to find her efforts stopped by the furry hands of a werewolf who punched her back into the ice. Aura flickering as she recovered from the impact, Weiss dodged the claws of the werewolf and struck out against the werewolf. Unfortunately, her efforts were met with by the werewolf simply dodging her rapier strike and punching her in the chest and face, before grabbing her by the throat.

Luckily for Weiss, it had forgotten that vampires don't need oxygen. Using her glyphs to form a pattern under the werewolf, she created ice on its legs forcing it to drop her. With an annoyed snarl, the beast threw her into a tree, knocking her out briefly and leaving her weapon on the floor.

As she fluttered her eyes open, dazed. What happened to her? Why was she in this forest instead of her home? She looked up to the beast in front of her who sneered. "A Schnee? I thought all your bastard scum were killed off. Oh well, I guess I may as well do what the others couldn't all those years ago."

Breaking off a branch from a nearby tree, Weiss watched in horror as the beast clawed Weiss up to her feet before holding her back with its hand. Her shoulders slumped as she stopped struggling and waited for the stake to pierce her body and snuff out her long yet painful life. A shame that this was how she would go, stuck under the chains of something far more powerful than herself and forced into a role she had no interest in partaking.

But the impact never came. All she heard was a guttural howl, followed by sounds of grunting. Opening her eyes, she found that her former target had come back, now fully a werewolf and tore into the previous werewolf's neck. Howling in pain, the werewolf tried to shake off her target, but to no avail. Weiss's former foe had no intent of leaving the beast alive, and she sunk her teeth deeper into the beast's neck.

Finally managing to latch onto the beast attacking it, the werewolf threw her off and attempted to claw it. But instead of connecting with flesh, it only found petals, as it was met with claws to it's back and sides. The red blur from before, this time surrounding the werewolf and slashing it mercilessly.

In desperation the werewolf summoned energy into its hands and slammed it down on the ground. With a flash of purple and black energy, Weiss watched as her ally was thrown back towards her, crushing her with her weight. Laughing wildly, the werewolf boasted "The pack's sacrifice was not in vain! Today I shall feast in the honor of my clan!"

The person she was ordered to kidnap, came back to her and tried to save her life. And for that, she was now lying on the ground, unconscious as her aura slowly began to fade into Shadows. Letting out a guttural scream, Weiss surrounded the werewolf with glyphs and rushed forward, striking the werewolf brutally across its entire body. With each strike a piece of ice growing on it.

In a matter of seconds, the beast was surrounded in ice everywhere but it's head. The werewolf howled as each strike turned more and more of its body into ice but there was no place left for mercy anymore. Summoning her Arma Gigas's sword, she brought it down in a vertical cleave allowing it to cut clean through the werewolf leaving her aura flickering as she prided herself on her handiwork.

Looking back to the werewolf, she had no longer any doubts about what she had to do with it. Picking it up over her shoulders she went back to the glyph she placed. And finally set down her dying ally and opened the portal that would take them both to their salvation.

Suddenly a shot rang out in the distance and struck Weiss in the stomach leaving her aura at the barest minimum. Staggered, she looked in front of her, finding Jaune and his hunter friend, who's rifle was now aimed squarely at Weiss.

"Don't make another move. Both of you are coming with us." The hunter said, completely unaware as to the fact that Weiss had made her mind that she wasn't leaving the werewolf to suffer at their hands. Focusing all her magic into her rapier, she let it drop from her hands and into the floor, letting out dry smirk as the rapier's impact brought a spike towards the hunter,

Reclaiming her weapon, Weiss immediately expanded the spike into a wall and picked up the werewolf and escaped into the portal.

 **To the one place where she knew, she could keep her and her 'acquaintance' safe**. **Ewiger Gletscher.**

* * *

**A/N: And with this chapter the first arc of Bonded Through Blood comes to a close and in good time as the next few chapters are filled with a lot more of a slowdown and improvement. But seriously this chapter, almost killed me. Writing it got extremely difficult and as such I'll probably not be working on it for a couple of days to quell my Fantasy Burnout. But hopefully you all enjoyed this chapter in this story!**

**Keep moving forward!**


	7. Acceptance

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth**

**Chapter 6: Acceptance**

* * *

Slash, Slash, Stab.

Stab, Bash, Block.

Slash, Slash, Counter, Stab.

Nonstop fighting, nonstop training. That's all Pyrrha needed. That's all that would make the difference. Kicking Jaune in the leg, before quickly slashing his chest with her wooden sword, Pyrrha tried knocking him off his feet with her shield.

Ever since she and Jaune started training, neither one of them had a good measure of when it was time to stop, between Pyrrha's unwavering tenacity and Jaune's stamina as a vampire. Mostly, Pyrrha tried to stop when Jaune was starting to get tired of being beaten.

Over the last 2 days, he had been starkly improving his skill with his sword and shield, and while he was still yet to land a strike against her, Pyrrha could tell his skill was finally starting to improve. The practice was paying off. Jaune's strikes were less and less improvised and were more effective overall.

But he was still a long way from Pyrrha's level, as was evident by how soundly she had beaten him in their previous duel.

"One more." She demanded, still not content.

"Pyrrha, you and I have been at this for at least 4 hours without a break! We need to rest!" Jaune replied, getting back up.

"No! We can't rest yet. We aren't ready." Pyrrha shot back, surprised at how stern her tone had gotten.

"Pyrrha, you can't keep doing this forever. You can't just keep on going on for days without sleep and proper food. Did you even have your lunch today?" Jaune asked.

"I had some bread and berries; now can we get back to training?"

"What?! No! You seriously think you'll be able to keep going like this with only bread and berries?" Jaune asked, concern seeping into his voice.

"Jaune, I need as little distractions as possible right now." Pyrrha shot back, raising her sword and shield.

"NO! What you need is rest! I'm sorry Pyrrha, I'm not going to sit by and watch as you work yourself to death." Jaune snapped, surprising Pyrrha with his tone.

"Jaune… Ruby's gone. She's gone because I couldn't get to her fast enough, she's gone because I couldn't bother to stick around and look at all the signs. She's gone because I couldn't do my duty as a Huntress!" she replied, throwing Milo into the wall.

"That wasn't your fault." Jaune meekly replied.

"She stuck out there in the wilderness at the mercy of a vampire because I couldn't get to her fast enough. Assuming she doesn't get killed by that vampire, she's still stuck as a werewolf. All because I wasn't attentive enough. So, tell me Jaune, does it look like none of this was my fault?"

"Pyrrha, Ruby chose to go out during a blood moon. You tried your hardest-"

"And that wasn't good enough!" she snapped.

"Alright, then Pyrrha. Tell me this."

"What?"

"Would she have wanted you to go down this path? Would Ruby want you to spend all your time training in this manner? When you, yourself, know your body can't possibly handle the stress, would your friend have wanted you to do it?" Jaune asked, finally breaking some of Pyrrha's defenses.

For so long she had been believing that this was the only she could ever make up for how badly she failed at protecting her friend. To train so hard that such an event would never need to happen again. So that no one else would need to go through what Ruby had.

"No good friend would ever want to see you have to put yourself through so much guilt and pain." Jaune calmly stated, placing his hand on Pyrrha's shoulder.

Looking to his face, she could barely even recognize the vampire she met four nights ago. Instead of nervous energy, there was now nothing but understanding and pity on his face.

"Please Pyrrha, take care of yourself. Not for me. But for Ruby." Jaune added.

What would Ruby have thought if she saw Pyrrha like this? What would she have thought of the invincible warrior she saw as her idol? Jaune was right. All this stressful, obsessive training wasn't going to help her. In fact, it was going to destroy her. And when that happened, who was Ruby going to look up to for help. Who was Ruby going to look up to become a better huntress?

Above anything else, Ruby would've wanted all her friends to be well. And here she was breaking Ruby's wish. All this destructive effort she was putting in, all of it was only going to destroy her.

The very thought of all her efforts only serving to be the reason for her downfall, broke her. She tried wiping away her tears but more kept coming. But as she wiped away the tears from her right, she felt another hand wipe away the tears on her left.

Hugging him close, she finally accepted his embrace and fell into it for once. Sitting down on a bench, she sat down and let out all the unkempt pain she had been hiding since Ruby was taken. And this time, she was no longer alone. This time she had someone she could at least trust to pick her up when she fell.

* * *

Seeing Pyrrha break down wasn't an easy experience for Jaune to get through. He didn't want to hurt Pyrrha but even he was able to see just how obsessive she had been getting with her training. Not sleeping properly, eating minimally, not even talking with her friends especially when she should be for their support?

All these were clear signs that Pyrrha needed her friends more than ever. After helping Pyrrha finally get back into her house, he immediately moved her to the couch and told her to rest. Pulling up the covers on her sleeping body, he watched as the redhead, after 2 days of constant and relentless training finally rested.

He debated calling Ren and Nora, but he found that it would be better to call them when Pyrrha was also awake. So instead he headed over to the pantry.

As the days went on by, Jaune himself was able to notice his appetite fading. His requirement for food and water had already been fading since he became a vampire but now, he wasn't even feeling the need to drink or eat. Which is what made him Pyrrha's perfect training partner.

He couldn't get tired, he didn't need to slow down to catch his breath any longer, he could keep going, keep fighting. Not being held down by a human body certainly had its perks. But was it worth losing his humanity?

To Jaune, his humanity was what made him special. It's what kept him tethered to his world. It was what made him different from the monsters people like Pyrrha hunted. But now, what was he?

Pyrrha always reminded him that he wasn't like the monsters, but Jaune didn't hesitate in attacking the werewolf mercilessly. He didn't hesitate to suck its blood, till it was dry to its bone. If the same situation came again, could he really trust himself to fight off his instincts?

No. He was Jaune Arc. To his family, to his few friends, to Pyrrha, he was just that. A kind man, maybe a little too kind for his own good but nevertheless at his core, a kind man. He wasn't going to let some vampiric curse change that. Not for Ruby. Not for Ren and Nora and most certainly not for Pyrrha.

Finally getting a grip on his thoughts, Jaune opened up the pantry and took out some eggs, bread, and some cheese. He would go for bacon too, but it kept on burning him all the time he tried to eat. He felt that, if he didn't need to eat, he may as well make something for Pyrrha.

Given how the sun was soon going to come up, he decided that he could at least make her a good breakfast to give her a proper start to her day. Lighting up the pan and setting the eggs down, he watched as they sizzled and slowly cooked themselves. As he went to season them however, he noticed he wasn't feeling any of the heat. After taking out the eggs, he was also able to notice the fact that he wasn't going to burn his hand if he got too close to it. Maybe he could finally make some Bacon!

Finding some of the meat, he put it down on the pan and began to let it fry. However, he quickly found out that he had no idea how to cook bacon. He overcooked the meat, caused hot oil to splatter all over the floor, and was a general mess overall.

As he was trying to clean it up with a cloth, he heard knocking on the door. Shuddering, he ran the cloth through the floor, unable to feel the heat of the oil. As the knocking got louder, however, he gave up on sweeping and tried to rush to the door.

Right as he made his first step however, he realized his mistake. Silently cursing his lack of foresight, he tripped and tumbled, the heat of the oil being nothing compared to the burning shame he was feeling. Recovering from his embarrassment, Jaune carefully made his way to the door.

Opening the door, he was shocked to find both Ren and Nora at the door waiting for him.

"Hey, Jaune! Where's Pyrrha?" Nora said, not being held down by her crutch.

"Hey, Nora. She's been… uh sleeping for some time."

"Is she okay?" Ren asked.

"She's doing better." Jaune admitted. "Come in."

He didn't know how much Pyrrha wanted her friends to be back in her house, but he had a sneaking suspicion that she was going to be a lot more accepting of having some friends around her.

"What is that smell?" Ren asked, wafting away some odor from his nose.

"Yeah, Jaune what is that?" Nora also asked, leaning against a wall.

"Oh. I tried making some bacon." He replied sheepishly.

"Need some help with that?" Ren asked.

"Yeahhhhh. That would be appreciated."

* * *

Rest wasn't something Pyrrha was used to. Especially after failure. But, thanks to Jaune, she was finally able to see the way she was going about it was going to destroy her. But it still didn't mean she didn't fail. Ruby was still gone, Weiss Schnee was still out in the wild and Jaune was now stuck as a vampire.

But she owed it to her allies to become better, to try to fix some of the mistakes she made. She owed it to bring Ruby back no matter what and she owed it to Jaune to make him a better huntsman. Her friends needed her to be strong for them and she had been failing that for the last two days.

So, she wasn't going to fail them any longer. She was going to try to correct the mistakes she made and this time, she was going to get it right. It's what every single one of her friends deserved.

Getting out of bed, she was immediately distracted by the strange smell in the air. It smelled like someone had burned something down in her kitchen? And what were all the noises in the living room?

Opening the door outside her room, she found Jaune and Nora sitting down in the living room with Ren being in the kitchen.

"Uh, Hello?" Pyrrha said, surprising them all.

"Hey, Pyrrha! We were just discussing making some breakfast!" Jaune replied, sheepishly.

"Hey! It's good to see you Pyrrha!" Nora replied, practically jumping out of her seat and walking over to her slowly. "Ren! Pyrrha's here!"

"I'm sorry. I wasn't being the best of friends to you over these last two- "she admitted, before being surprised by a hug from the crippled Valkyrie.

"Pyrrha. We were never unhappy about you not opening up to us. We were just worried you were going to be yourself." Nora openly admitted, cradling Pyrrha's head in her shoulder.

"Well, I guess it's a good thing I found a partner too." She replied with a smile, a tear forming down her cheek as she looked to Jaune.

Wiping it away Nora asked "Who?" to which she pointed to the flustered vampire.

"I think I speak for both of us when I say thank you Jaune. It's good to see you well Pyrrha, although I would suggest you get some proper breakfast." Ren replied, coming over from the kitchen with 4 plates filled with bread, eggs, cheese, and bacon.

"It's good to see both you and Nora as well, I hope not much has changed in my absence?" she asked, finally accepting the offer to also sit down by the commons where Ren had placed the food.

"Well, Ozpin I believe has already set up a bounty for Miss Schnee and he has already begun recruiting every single Huntsman or Huntress he could find to help rescue Ruby. He has assigned his riftmasters to analyze the glyph the Schnee used to escape. I believe he was interested in meeting with both of you in a day or two." Ren explained, as all of them gathered around the table and began eating.

It had been far too long since Pyrrha had a simple meal like this with her closest friends.

"Has Nora been recovering well?" Jaune asked, taking a bite out of the bread.

"I would say she's been doing better," Ren revealed matter-of-factly.

"Better? I've been doing so much more than just better! I've managed to safely run lighting through my muscles again! In a day or two, I'll be ready to fight!" Nora replied, gesturing to her injured leg, which was having Pink Electricity flow through it.

"Nora. Please. At least make sure to train with me once before you go about smashing Grimm into pieces."

"Awww, come on party pooper I can handle myself!" Nora exclaimed with a pout.

"I know you can, but I would feel much safer with the knowledge that something like this won't happen again if you try fighting the way you did, alright?" Ren replied, with a warm smile.

"Fine!" Nora relented, crossing her arms." So Pyrrha, what's the plan for today?"

"Well I was going to keep training but it's evident that someone wants me to prioritize my own mental well-being instead." She replied, with a glance towards Jaune, who blushed at the compliment. "So instead, I might take some time away from training. Come back when I'm feeling a little more focused."

"Sounds like a solid plan, Pyrrha." Jaune replied back.

"It's the least I can do for my friends." Pyrrha said.

"Thank you both for being such great friends. And thank you Jaune. Thank you for being such a genuine friend even when I didn't want to listen. I'm lucky to have you all in my life."

"And we're lucky to have you in our lives as well Pyrrha. Let nothing else change that." Ren replied, finishing up his meals.

Reassured of her friends' support, Pyrrha finally let out a sigh of relief as she finally believed that, for once, things might turn out okay. She was going to find what happened to Ruby and she was going to put down Weiss Schnee.

**But she was going to do it the right way, not by destroying herself but by trusting her friends to push her to become the best she could be.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: First of all I'm sorry about the late upload but burnout is a bitch! I was having so much trouble thinking up of a way to progress this story and the burnout I had with Fantasy wasn't helping things either. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter!
> 
> Let me know if you have any feedback from this chapter as it always helps to keep me going and as always keep moving forward!


	8. Grounded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Burnout sucks. I am going to announce that I will be taking my time with this story and will be releasing chapters at my own pace from now on but for now enjoy some WR bonding.

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to be fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 7: Grounded**

* * *

Ruby felt like she had splitting headache when she woke up. Every part of her body felt sore and soooo tired. Everything felt so… heavy and comfy? Wait, why was everything so fluffy as well? Why did she feel as if she just grew hair all over her body?

Blinking her eyes open, she found herself on a comfortable bed with blankets covering her, fluffy skin?

'Wait, why's my skin all hairy?' she thought, before nearly ripping off the blankets to reveal fur all over her arms and legs.

Letting out a scream, the truth became apparent to her. She was now a werewolf, one of the very beasts she was meant to hunt. No matter what she tried to do, she could never hide the fact that she was no longer human. What was she supposed do?

"Calm down." Came a voice from her left. Blinking open her eyes; she found the vampire from before looking at her. Immediately she went for her belt, hoping to find her weapon only to find it missing and that her hands were bound with ropes.

"What do you want?" Ruby asked, gnashing her newfound fangs. She found herself snarling at the approaching vampire, who merely walked towards her with poise, not making any sudden moves.

"Don't panic, I have no intention of keeping you here longer than you need to be." The girl replied softly. "I just had to make sure you didn't end up using your claws against me during the blood moon."

So that's why there were so many monsters in the woods last night. Ruby had picked a blood moon to go out and reminisce with her mother. She nearly slapped her head over it but was then reminded of her bindings. Struggling against them, she tried to pull them apart but was unable.

The vampire came closer and said. "Those bonds won't break by struggling. Allow me."

Taking out the rapier from her belt on her waist, the vampire quickly cut through the bindings holding Ruby down.

"Better now?" She asked, looking unimpressed almost as if she was expecting Ruby to escape.

Ruby was considering making a run for it like she had before but given how she had no idea where she was, and that this vampire was able to trap her in bindings she couldn't escape. She was a force to be reckoned with and she knew better than to try to antagonize her any further.

So, she responded "Yeah, thanks I guess."

"Being turned on a blood moon is never a good sign, especially if the victim is left unattended. However, if reached quick enough, one can guarantee the victim won't be effected for life with a maddening bloodlust." The vampire explained, letting Ruby know that she was probably only safe because the vampire willed it.

Definitely not a good idea to annoy her any further.

"Hold out your arms." Weiss commanded. "I need to make sure the bindings didn't end up permanently cursing you."

"Wait. Cursing me?" Ruby asked, fear seeping into her voice.

"Well the last person I used this on attempted to banish me. It never hurts to check whether or not I kept the same enchantments." The vampire explained, nonchalantly. "Seeing as how you and I have much to discuss if you are to return to the normal world, I would find it best that I _don't_ end up killing or banishing you. Especially not by your own recklessness."

"O-Okay." She agreed nervously, quickly putting up her hands for the vampire to see.

"Hmmmm." The vampire pondered, taking her fluffy arms with her cold hands. Despite the frigid touch, they were still… soft. "Doesn't seem like anything too serious. Although we can't be too sure."

Running her hands through her furry skin, Ruby felt the touch oddly soothing and once she softly laid down her arms on the bed, she found herself surprised with this change in expression. Where was the vampire from before who nearly killed her, Pyrrha and Jaune? Where was the vampire who ruthlessly hunted her down, trying to capture her?

Taking out a box from a cupboard, she watched as the vampire, smeared some odd cream on her arms, before doing the same near her legs, after cutting the bindings on them. Somehow, it managed to make the fur dissipate back into arms, revealing her once human skin.

"Okay, I've managed to give you some level of control over your form. With some training you might even be able to restore your human form. For now, thought, at best you'll be looking like a Faunus." She explained, setting the box of cream on the bedside table.

"Why are you helping me?" Ruby asked, curious as to why the vampire actually wanted to help her.

"I owe you one. You saved my life out in the forest." The vampire explained, offering Ruby a hand. "Wouldn't be fair if I at least repay the favor by helping you with your new life as a werewolf."

"What about the whole attacking my friend's thing?" Ruby asked nervously.

"I wasn't in the best of headspaces in that time. Someone corrupted me into a weapon." The vampire explained. "Now are you going to get out of the bed?"

"O-okay." Ruby replied, gingerly taking the vampire's hand. Her now human hands got a full sense for just how cold the vampire's hands had been.

"Splendid." The vampire said, helping her out of the bed. Boy did she feel tired. Being a werewolf was more tiring than she once thought. "If I may have the pleasure of knowing, what is your name?"

"Ruby, Ruby Rose." She replied.

"Huh, interesting." Said the vampire. "I suppose it isn't fair if you don't know my name either. My name is Weiss Schnee."

"Hello then Weiss. Thanks for helping me out!" Ruby said back. What a pretty name that was. So clear and elegant. Just like the person standing beside her.

"Don't make it a habit. I'm doing this because I'm not the kind of person who breaks a promise." Weiss replied coldly.

"Okay. Where are we headed to first? Also, where are we?! I don't think I've seen a place as pretty as this." Ruby exclaimed, in awe of the room she was in.

Clear white marble and a strange tinge of ice filled the spacious bedroom. A mosaic on the floor and roof and an icy touch to the room told Ruby that this was a luxurious house. With adequate space for mirrors and a window that revealed a blizzard outside to further beautify the place.

"This is Ewiger Gletscher. It's a frost plane made by one of my forefathers. Ever since the Schnee Manor was destroyed around 50 years prior, this place has served as my home." She explained as they exited out of the bedroom and into the main hallway, where she was treated to a spacious lounge area, accessible by the staircases to her left and right with a beautiful chandelier at the roof of the place.

It seemed the room Ruby was staying in was the main room, seeing as how literally every other room led right here. To her left she could make out a hallway leading to two rooms and the same could be said for her right.

"Follow me." The vampire said, as she was still in awe at the Manor. Did Weiss have any people she lived with? This house was perfect as a place to relax!

Leading her towards the left corridor, Weiss opened the door to their left and led her into a huge dining hall, like the ones Ruby had only heard of in stories! It had a long table and several seats.

"Wow. Your forefathers must have a put a lot of work into this place." Ruby commented, in awe of the place, before her attention snapped to single plate containing… "Cookies?"

"Consider it an apology for our earlier… 'altercation' in the forest." The vampire replied, making Ruby's heart jump up in joy. She was expecting to have been captured to be used for as a bait but seeing as how so far Weiss had only helped Ruby with her werewolf condition, given her a place to stay and even baked cookies for her, she couldn't help but think this visit was going much better than she expected.

Biting into the cookies she could tell that while they weren't exactly the best, they were still pretty good! It gave her an odd sense of effort, as if she actually tried her hardest while she was making these.

"These are pretty good! Not the best ones I've eaten but then again those are my moms and well no one's beating that." She said, while devouring the cookies. Before she ended up realizing what she was saying.

"I'm so sorry about that! I know you didn't-"Ruby sheepishly added, stopping her cooking eating frenzy in an attempt to apologize for her rudeness.

"It's okay Ruby. It's been some time since I've had anyone around to actually tell me something or give me some feedback." Weiss replied quickly.

"But don't you have any friends around with you here? This is place is huge! You could probably fit two teams of huntsman and huntresses here!" Ruby exclaimed. Was Weiss really the only person here?

"No. I don't. Being a vampire and a descendent of a powerful bloodline of mages tends to make you a target." Weiss explained, crossing her arms and looking down at the ground. "Anyways, it's refreshing to have someone else to talk to other than the odd criminal or monster who I end up draining of blood."

So, Weiss really was all alone in this place. She had no one to talk to, no friends she could trust with her secrets and insecurities. How could someone live like that, for 50 years no less, and not go insane? How did Weiss even have the fortitude to live like this?

"Was it always like this for you? Didn't you have someone who you could trust at one point?" She asked, genuinely concerned for Weiss.

"I wasn't born lonely Ruby. I used to have a family, although calling it a family would be giving it too much credit." Weiss explained, further surprising Ruby. "I did have an elder sister however."

"Uhhh, what happened to her? Why isn't she… you know… around?" Ruby asked, curious as to who this elder sister was and why she wasn't around helping Weiss.

"She died helping me escape."

"I'm so sorry Weiss." Ruby said, pitying the poor vampire. Sure, she attempted to capture Ruby and tried to capture her but still, no one deserved this fate. No deserved to languish for the rest of their days out alone, without anyone to trust, without anyone to fall back to.

"It's fine. It's not like your apology is going to bring her back. After all, once you leave, it's back to being hunted by the world again." Weiss replied, her meek attempt at hiding her emotions failing as Ruby could very clearly notice the broken edge to her voice.

Weiss was hurt, and she needed help.

* * *

Weiss didn't know what to expect with this new werewolf 'companion' she brought over from Vale. For one thing, it had been around fifty years since she even thought of bringing someone over to her 'home'.

She certainly had no idea it was going to end up like this, with her taking in a werewolf and promising to help her return to the world with a better understanding of her new form. To at least give her a better chance at a normal life. One that she could never have had.

But what prompted the change? Why did she even feel the need to help out this girl?

Was it really meeting that naïve boy out in the woods that led her to this? The same boy she turned because he offered his humanity to save her life? It was an act of generosity, one which Weiss never really got to repay due to what happened.

Speaking of which, what really happened? The details were still foggy, but she did remember a voice speaking into her head. Her mind and body, being willed to obey to some force, something stronger than her. And to add to that she could tell that something was off in her home.

What exactly she couldn't tell but whatever it was she hoped to find it soon, before it ended up risking Ruby's and her their lives. She didn't want to admit it, but she was a little scared of whoever tried to harm her and Ruby.

But for now, she could focus on Ruby. The one deviation from her admittedly lonely life. So far, she was surprised at how warm it felt, being responsible for someone else. It finally felt like she could actually feel something in her cold life.

Taking care of someone else, it felt natural, to a human but how did that apply to a vampire? Weren't they supposed to be guided by the singular desire for blood?

And yet, she wanted to help out this… poor girl. This girl who she had inadvertently doomed to a life of a monster. She knew just how bad it was for their kind out in Remnant. The racism, the insecurity and of course, being hunted by Hunters and Huntresses if they didn't turn themselves over to the nearest cities.

For their kind, it was a simple choice. Either join them or die. But with what Weiss had seen, she wasn't willing to go with either choice.

As Ruby finally finished her cookies, Weiss let out a soft sigh at the complicated nature of her life, before asking "Now follow me. I'll be taking you on a small tour of the place."

"Sure! Although not to be rude here but how does a vampire know so much about werewolves." The werewolf said, getting up from the table and following Weiss as she led them out of the room.

"Magic runs deep in my bloodline. It was only natural for me to know a lot about it."

The intricate walls and hallways were all built as a reminder to a better time. A time when her family's name wasn't bastardized as a house of vampires but one of the finest mages responsible for pioneering the art of glyphs. Now all Weiss could do was look at them and wonder how it all fell apart.

"Weiss, you okay? You seem… I dunno a little… distracted?" Ruby asked gingerly.

"I am, it's just… bad memories really." Weiss replied, which wasn't untrue. This house was modeled after the Schnee Manor in the real world. Which for all it's wealth and grandeur had never really been her home. As such, even this safe place, this safe haven was tainted by not so fond memories.

What she wasn't expecting however was for Ruby to actually come forward and place her arms around her. "What are you doing?" Weiss asked, puzzled yet feeling strangely endeared to the werewolf who was now rubbing her soft fur against her clothes.

"Hugging you! I do this to friends when they seem down. It's usually not much, but seeing as how you and I are friends, I think it's nice to help each other out." The werewolf explained, tightening her grip.

Somehow the action didn't feel awkward or threatening. It felt warm and kind, almost in the way a friend would have tried to help out another. Of which, Weiss was still unsure. Were she and Ruby really friends? Her desire to help Ruby came out a feeling of guilt after all and also a promise.

And yet Ruby, who had no reason to feel grateful for anything beyond just a simple welcome and apology, chose to actually comfort her. It was… nice.

"Thank you Ruby. Now let's head over to the library."

"Okay!"

Ruby's intrusion into her life had been unexpected but not an unwelcome one. After all, it did bring back some warmth to her life even if it was only temporary.

* * *

Ruby didn't exactly know what Weiss meant by learning to control her new werewolf 'form' but, she hoped it wouldn't be too complicated. Figuring out forging magic was hard enough as it was but spellcasting? Forget it, she didn't even know what she was saying half the time!

Although the library Weiss had was huge! Seriously, there were as many books as she had seen in the public library! What use did she even have for those books Ruby had no idea but whatever it was she was glad she wasn't fighting her any longer.

"How many books do you think are in here?" she asked curiously.

"Around 700." She replied nonchalantly, much to Ruby's shock.

"You could fit an entire public library in that!"

A small smile came onto Weiss's face upon hearing her comment. She really did look the best when she smiled.

"What can I say? My family had good taste." Weiss responded before pulling out a couple of books from a section labelled "Beasts from the Wildlands".

"Soo, you have all these books memorized by place?" Ruby asked, leaning her head forward to find the books. Strangely, she felt something flop down to her hair. Looking up, she was surprised to find two fluffy ears lying atop her head.

"No." came the swift response. Pulling out a book out of pure curiosity Ruby was quickly surprised to have the book be almost immediately swatted out of her hands.

"Ahh!"

"What were you doing?" Weiss snapped.

"I just tried taking a book and then it got slapped out of my hand." She retorted, pointing to the surprisingly thick book she had pulled out. Huh, her werewolf strength must have been something new.

"Wards and protections cover this entire house. If you want something, let me know but do not touch anything." Weiss announced, before taking out a book.

Unable to resist the temptation, Ruby… went out for another book. But it was just a book on the Grimm! It's not like those protections would care about just one single book right? As she quickly swiped the book however, she got her answer in the form of the book literally sending an energy wave that threw her into the air… and right onto the study desk.

Cracking the desk with the weight of her impact, Ruby's vision blurred for a few minutes as she tried recall the accursed book that caused this entire mess. However, she was instead taken out of her thoughts by a very audible slam.

Fluttering open her eyes, Ruby quickly looked towards the sound of the voice only to see Weiss. Who was currently, holding her face in her hands while looking over the railing. If looks could kill, she could've probably killed Ruby twice over in that instant.

"Why did I agree to this?" she heard Weiss mutter under her breath, before Weiss closed her right hand waved over the bookshelves making the pretty rings on her hand glow up. To Ruby's surprise, she ended finding that the books she had 'disturbed' had already put themselves back in their place.

"Well, are you going to just lie there waiting around for the next new moon or are you actually going to get up so that we can figure out how your werewolf form works?" Weiss asked, making Ruby blush in embarrassment as she jumped off the destroyed desk only to hear another loud creak.

After which the desk promptly fell apart, earning an extremely deep sigh from the vampire. Curse her werewolf hearing!

Weiss really had to stop making impulsive promises based off her conflicting emotional state. Then again, those impulsive promises were what led to her finally getting out of her shell, so perhaps it was her who had to do some work.

However, there was simply no way she could understand why Ruby chose to not heed her warning. Was she really that curious to test her protections, even after Weiss warned her? If so, she had to give respect for her wanting to verify things but also meant she had to knock down a few points in terms of common sense.

Thankfully however, if there was anything good to come out of this mess, it was the fact that Weiss had managed to test her protections and had also been able to identify the book she was after. With a hardcover copy of 'Blood Moons- The Red Tide of the Moon' firmly in her hands, Weiss made her way down to the second floor.

"Serves you right for not listening." Weiss said to the vampire, with an annoyed glare. However, her annoyance almost immediately faded when Ruby used her puppy dog eyes. "Although, I suppose this can be easily replaced."

Attempting to divert her attention away from Ruby's puppy dog eyes, Weiss merely coughed and gestured for Ruby to come to the main study located at the far end of the library. Admiring the mosaic work on the glass, Weiss quickly placed the book down on the desk and took out the page on werewolves.

Ruby of course, bounded around from place to place. Fortunately, Weiss had already altered the way the protections and wards worked, so that her new guest was far less likely to end up being sent flying through the air or having a book restrain her to the ground.

Taking out the section on werewolves, she finally found out everything she could on the matter. Promptly closing the book, she got up from her desk, looking over the frozen expanse of Ewiger Gletscher, which despite its frigid state, had an oddly warm glow over the sky.

Weiss knew that her emotions did end up altering the state of this realm. After all her isolation had felt nothing short of frigid. And yet, the feeling of warmth she got from just having Ruby around… was something she was now scared of losing.

"Hey Weiss? You done?" Ruby asked, popping up out of nowhere. Startled, she almost ended up tripping over her desk, before she felt a tug on her hand and was pulled back to her feet. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-"

"Oh no! It's okay! Don't worry about it!" Weiss replied quickly, trying to control her rampant feelings on the matter. "Anyways, I found out what I could about your transformation."

"Ooh, would you mind telling me?" Ruby asked, with a yawn (had it really been that long?).

"Alright, although you're heading to sleep after this." Weiss said before starting her lengthy explanation on how Blood Moon transformations were different from regular transformations.

"Okay, so essentially, your traits will end up traversing in phases. The Full Moon is where you'll be fully turned into a werewolf, and the subsequent phases after you'll end up losing more and more of your traits until you eventually end up fully human at the new moon."

"Wait, losing more and more of my traits?"

"Well currently, you'll notice you have your fur, your ears and tail. It's only been one day since the blood moon and as such, some of your werewolf quirks are gone but a majority of them still remain. As the nights progress, this will keep happening." Weiss explained, leading Ruby to a room, she had prepared specifically for her with the help of her servants.

"So like, until the New Moon, I won't be human?" Ruby asked, her ears dropped as she asked the question.

"Sadly, no. I'm afraid I've never heard of a cure for lycanthropy induced during the blood moon." Weiss replied, almost immediately regretting saying it seeing Ruby's face drop in disappointment.

"So, I'm stuck as a werewolf forever?"

"Not permanently, while your traits are gone, I do believe that with a little bit of training some level of control can be achieved with your werewolf form. With that, you may actually be able to control which traits show. That is of course assuming you're actually willing to sit still and figure out the process with me." Weiss replied.

"Hey! I can sit still!"

"You were unable to stop longer than two minutes." Weiss conclude, before opening the door to the room.

"Yeah but-" Ruby started before her jaw fell on the floor. "Woah."

The room wasn't the most spacious the Manor had to offer, but it was by far one of the comfiest.

"Welcome to your room. I hope you won't mind the slight alterations I made to better suit your needs." Weiss said, with a tiny smirk on her face.

"It's huge!"

"It should fit all your needs and hopefully any other things you have to worry about. Oh, and one thing. I believe there something you have been missing that's on the desk." Weiss said, gesturing to the mahogany desk.

"Is that Crescent Rose?" Ruby asked, her eyes widening.

"It was a struggle for my servants to not have you ruin the surprise. Some of them genuinely might need to take a break."

"Thank you, so much. For all of this. Thank you." Ruby said, before catching Weiss off-guard with a bearhug, to rival even an Ursa. Strangely however, Weiss actually enjoyed the feeling.

**It wasn't every day she could actually feel warm after all.**


	9. The Calm Before the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I am making this note to inform all of you lovely readers that I shall not be posting anymore chapters until I finish this arc. This announcement comes out of me wanting to have enough time to properly manage my life along with writing fanfics and also to help my mental health as writing fanfics has been rather draining recently. But have no fear! When I finish the arcs they shall be posted far quicker. As always keep moving forward my friends and stay safe.

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 8:The** **Calm Before the Storm**

* * *

Today was the day.

The day Pyrrha headed out to find the Vampire that had dared to take their lives and had kidnapped Ruby. She had been training hard for the last three days with Jaune by her side, training both herself and him to deal with vampires. Despite not getting off to the best start, Jaune was a quick learner and while there was still a lot left for him to learn, Pyrrha was at least confident that he would be able to play a much stronger role in whatever awaited for them.

Besides, Jaune's real strengths didn't lie in his combat. Despite all his strength and the many abilities his vampire nature offered him, Pyrrha could easily tell Jaune's real strength was in playing defensive. After observing the way he fought, she found that defense came much more naturally to him, especially after seeing the way he botched some of his attacks against her.

It was a unique experience, and one Pyrrha was sure was going to come in handy when they headed off on their quest. At least after they managed to make sure Jaune wasn't in any risk of dying by starvation. Heading over to Ren and Nora's house with him, she could tell he was feeling the need to feed.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, leaning against Pyrrha as they trudged along.

"I get the feeling I should be asking you that question instead." She said, with a smile, as she put his arm around her neck.

"A little tired and sore, I'm pretty sure it was how badly you managed to beat me." Jaune remarked sarcastically.

"You do realize you are a vampire, right? I think that gives some grounds to push you to your limits, seeing as you technically don't have any." Pyrrha remarked, playing into the game.

"Hahahaha, just don't hit my shins again, please?" Jaune said, with a bitter laugh.

"Oh, come now, it was an accident! I even apologized for it!" Pyrrha replied.

"Yeah, you did. At least seven times."

"Felt like five at the time."

"Hahahaha, anyways can we both agree you're freakishly good at training? Like even for a regular human?" Jaune laughed, which in turn made her smile.

"I've been trained all my life Jaune, it comes naturally to me."

"And yet, you still needed me to tell you when to stop."

"Well, slowing down is harder. And for what it's worth, I'm grateful for you being there." She admitted, slowing down her pace, as they approached closer.

"It's the least I can do. After all, you accepted me into your life… even though you didn't have to. You bothered to put up with me and my admittedly frustrating behaviors." Jaune also admitted. "And you actually took your time out to help me become better. Thank you… for all of it."

"You're welcome Jaune." Pyrrha said, blushing intently upon hearing Jaune's praise. "We're here."

Knocking on the door, the two were almost immediately greeted by Nora, who seemed to be fully healed, as was evident by the way she greeted them.

"Hey guys!" She said, bounding with energy as she nearly slammed open the door. "How are you both of you?"

"Doing great Nora. We're here for getting the blood bags, we're gonna head out soon and meet with Oobleck for the rifts." Jaune replied, as Pyrrha helped him into a couch.

"Why look at you two, all ready for an adventure." Nora commented as she went to the altar where Ren was still working with his blood magic. "Ren! Pyrrha and Jaune are here!"

After getting a response, Nora returned to the two of them carrying a blood bag in her hand. Setting it down on the table, she left it for Jaune who quickly grabbed the bag and began to drink it down.

Turning away from Jaune, Pyrrha faced Nora who had gotten some Mistralian tea for her in a flower decorated cup.

"Soooo, how's training going? Hopefully, it's better than the first time we visited you and Jaune."

"Oh definitely, Jaune had proven to be quite the… tough partner."

"Oh, you mean, he's managed to last longer than I did?"

"Indeed. His vampiric nature tends to make for much hardier skin."

"Ooooh, then why is he holding his legs so gingerly?"

"Oh, I might have hit his shins by accident." Pyrrha said, rubbing the back of her head.

"Pftttt. Hey at least you didn't break his legs."

"Oh goodness no. I would be horrified."

"Oh relax! He's a vampire! He's probably gonna heal back from it in like what? Ten minutes?"

"Five actually."

"Oh, you did break them?!"

"No! No! He fell into a ditch." Pyrrha admitted, sheepishly. "He's doing much better! He's improving steadily."

"Uh huh, Sureeee." Nora said with a teasing smile, after pouring out the tea. "Seems like you got your work cut out for you, once this whole thing is done."

"Maybe. But in the end, I think it will be worth it. "Pyrrha said, smiling as she watched Jaune fumble with the blood bag.

"Well no matter what happens, just know you'll have mine and Ren's support through it. Good luck Pyrrha and make sure to break some legs for me will ya?" Nora said, putting away the kettle and giving Pyrrha a reassuring smile.

"Thank you, Nora." Pyrrha replied, grateful for Nora's never-ending support. It was something that was often very hard to find and she was lucky beyond the stars to have it.

"Nora! Tell Jaune I wish to meet him!" Came a voice from the staircase, which belonged to Ren.

"Got it Renny! I think Jaune's gonna like this one. Ren's been working all night over it." Nora said. "Are you ready for a visit to the blood doctor, Jaune?"

"I would really prefer if you didn't call him that Nora." Jaune admitted, his teeth clenching slightly.

"Awww, but where's the fun in that?" Nora asked, before taking him down to where Ren would be expecting him.

* * *

Walking down the stairs over to Ren's altar, Jaune wondered about his mission. He was fully aware of the things Pyrrha had been saying to Nora and he knew that in the end, Pyrrha was absolutely right. He was by no means qualified for this and while he certainly was a… bit more skilled than before he met Pyrrha, he was still nowhere near her level. And was probably never going to be. He lacked so many of the traits that Pyrrha exemplified when it came to her training and preparedness.

In fact, at this rate, he was wondering if he should even be going on this quest or not. It was very clear that Pyrrha could easily handle herself and seeing how much he seemed to be bungling things… maybe she would be better off on her own? Without his incompetency to cope for, maybe Pyrrha would have a better chance of completing this quest on her own.

Maybe in the end, Jaune really wouldn't be needed.

Pondering over these thoughts, Jaune finally reached the entrance to the Altar where, as he was expecting, Ren was working on some experiment. After looking for Nora for confirmation, to which she nodded, Jaune entered the room with Nora closing the door behind him. The air of the Altar was surprisingly clean. It didn't feel thick, neither did it stink with the smell of blood.

"Wondering why you haven't felt the urge to drink the blood here?" Ren asked, barely turning from his experiment which seemed to be orbs of some sort.

"Kinda? Although I did drink the entire blood bag you guys gave me, so I don't think I would be feeling thirsty for a good amount of time."

"You're not wrong on that account, but the real secret is that I've enchanted this place. Normally the blood taken from the living tends to cause an addiction to it, which if left unchecked can fling a vampire into bloodlust. In order to prevent that from happening, I enchant first, making sure it's safe for people like you to drink." Ren explained, facing Jaune and giving him a thin smile.

"That's very thoughtful of you." Jaune responded "Thank you."

"My pleasure. It does not do to have one's friends turn into raging monsters purely for the purposes of magic." Ren responded.

"Sooo? What have you been working on? You know, the reason you wanted to bring me down here?"

"I've been working on a ring. More specifically this one." Ren replied, holding up a ring that was embroidered with a vine like design. The intricate detailing was something beautiful. Watching as all the curves, and lines came together to make a truly beautiful design. "This ring, assuming I got my experiments all right, has the power to prevent the vampire that turned you from being able to control you Jaune. While I suspect you don't even know it yourself, from the reports I heard there was one thing I hadn't been able to make sense of for a long time."

"Which was?"

"How you manage to resist a call from the vampire that turned you. Normally some vampires would flinch or break or at the very least shake slightly. But not you. You seemed to have had complete control of yourself despite the Schnee vampire having you at her mercy."

"Oh, I guess I wasn't really feeling much back then, more so I was just paralyzed with the fact that a girl I knew, had come up from out of nowhere and threatened with her rapier."

"Maybe so, but Nora and I found something strange about your aura. In fact, I would go far as to say it's easily one of the most abundant I've seen in a long time."

"Oh, that's good?"

"Very, it means you can take a lot more hits in combat and perhaps even more importantly means you'll have better control of yourself assuming someone attempts to use your vampiric nature against you."

"So why are you giving me this ring?"

"As a backup option, in case worst comes to worst, this ring will make sure you can keep control of yourself even if the Schnee vampire attempts to use her abilities against you while your aura is down. Alternatively, if you wish to take things a little riskier, you could theoretically channel aura into the ring to use it to strengthen your attacks."

"Wait aura channeling?" He asked, putting on the ring.

"Ah, I see Pyrrha hasn't taught you that yet. Well think of it like forcing your aura into a concentrated space. I'm unfortunately not by any means a teacher, but I try to imagine it as flowing energy throughout your body into a compact region like say your hand."

After allowing his aura to become more fluid as Pyrrha had taught him earlier, Jaune took a deep breath and tried to imagine a current of aura flowing in his left arm. Imagining it flowing through his body, he tried to force it all into his hand, which started to make the carvings on the ring glow and flicker as he noticed his entire arm was glowing.

Unfortunately, he didn't exactly know how to handle it for too long and as such, his concentration slipped, and his attempt was stopped.

"Not bad for your first try, I'll admit it took me a lot of tries before I managed to do it for even a second. It seems that your overabundance of aura has given you some extra gifts." Ren admitted. "Don't be disappointed, it might take you some time before you get the hang of things."

"Thanks Ren. Uh, before we go, can I talk to you about something?"

"Sure."

"Uh, I know I am not really the best at this whole huntsma-"

"Jaune stop. Please." Ren firmly said, making him shut up. "This is your first mission, if anything I wouldn't expect myself to get the hang of things the first time."

"Yeah but, seeing how important this mission is… I don't want to mess this up. I don't want to risk Pyrrha or Ruby's lives again." He continued, sitting down by the steps.

"I can't say for sure what will happen on this mission. Nor do I know how you'll impact it. But there really is no point to it Jaune." Ren said, sitting down besides Jaune. "If all we do is encumber ourselves with the fear of the unknown, we may never truly see our potential."

"I know, it's just… I can't shake off the feeling that in the long run, I may be more of a liability than an actual ally on this quest."

"Now, I can't say whether or not that's true. But I can tell you that compared to who you were, when you showed up at our doorstep on that night, you've changed a lot. And we all are proud of who you are and what you've become." Ren said, helping Jaune up to get him above the stairs.

"Thanks Ren." Jaune said, giving Ren a hug, which surprised Ren, given by how long it took for him to return it. Long enough for the door to ring.

"Let's move Jaune. I would prefer that we didn't keep our guest waiting." Ren said, before opening the door and heading up the stairs.

Looking back to the ring that now rested comfortably on his finger, clenched his fist accidentally making aura flow through his palm. Feeling a surge of energy pass through his fist he quickly unclenched it.

"Oh, you may want to make sure you don't accidentally charge up the ring. Unless you want to cause a shockwave to go through the next thing you touch." Ren said, without even turning.

Embarrassed, Jaune simply followed Ren up, nervously patting his hand, a little more confident that this quest wasn't going to be a complete mistake.

* * *

Pyrrha had always known Riftmaster Oobleck was always a little strange. With his almost incomprehensible speech and his odd fascination with all things caffeinated, it wasn't hard to see why anyone really thought of him as anything other than strange.

But despite that odd exterior, inside Pyrrha knew lay one of the greatest minds to ever grace Vale, as Oobleck's abilities with rifts had proven vital in saving hundreds of lives and in turn making huntsman missions safer and much more easier in terms of traversal throughout the lands. Undoubtedly, Dr. Oobleck was a true master of his craft.

But despite his achievements, Pyrrha couldn't help but wonder, if it was even possible for him to create a rift out of a piece of insignia. After all, she could tell that the Schnee Vampire herself was no slouch when it came to magic. Given how easily she was able to take away Ruby and cut her way through a pack of werewolves on her own, she wondered if what if the vampire had taken measures to cover her tracks?

Upon hearing the doorbell ring however, Pyrrha simply let out a sigh as she waited for Nora to open the door. And as she expected, Dr. Oobleck came through the door, taking a generous swig of his thermos, of which Pyrrha could only imagine the contents of.

"Why good evening Miss Nikos and Mrs Valkyrie! It's a pleasure to meet you!"

"Hello Dr. Oobleck. It's good to meet you as well." Pyrrha said, standing up and bowing before the Riftmaster.

"Now! Now! There's no need for that! After all we're here to discuss quest plans! Not sit around for tea! Isn't that right Mrs Valkyrie?"

"Of course! Although if you want, I could probably make you something. Ren taught me all his secrets after all."

"That would be wonderful Mrs Valkyrie! But I fear time is of the essence! I simply must meet with Miss Nikos and some vampire named Jaune and inform them of their quest. After all, I believe Young Miss Rose's life is in danger and the sooner we act, the sooner we can guarantee her safety!" Oobleck said, sipping his thermos in between.

"Jaune's here master Oobleck, let me-"

"It's Dr. Oobleck Miss Nikos. Please get it right." Oobleck said, sitting down on the sofa.

"Well then, I guess I'll go call him then." Nora said out, before receiving a response from Ren, from a stairwell to their right.

"No need Nora. We're here." Ren said, climbing out with Jaune following behind him soon after.

"Ren! It's good to see you!" Nora said, jumping him with a hug.

Feeling somewhat jealous, Pyrrha walked over to Jaune and after tugging his arm along, made him sit next to her on the sofa.

"Nora! We have guests!" Ren whispered, as he returned her hug and quickly turned his attention to her and Oobleck. "Welcome both of you, I'm sorry I wasn't able to greet you earlier."

"No need to apologize Ren, whatever it is, I'm sure it was important." Pyrrha said, before realizing the ring on Jaune's hand.

"Oh, it was. Trust me." Jaune said, proudly displaying the ring and then clenching his fist, allowing her to see the ring in full display.

"Why is it that you never make me jewelry?" Nora complained jokingly, booping Ren on the nose.

"The only jewelry that matters to me is the one on you're wearing on your finger." Ren said, with a smile, pointing to her ring, before pressing a kiss to her cheek.

"Well, if two of you are done, I believe there's a matter I need to discuss with Ms Nikos and Master Arc." Oobleck said, interrupting the two lovebirds.

"Ah yes, please do, Dr. Oobleck." Ren said, dragging Nora away who was currently still processing what just happened.

"Well, I managed to crack the secret of these glyphs and might I just say, the sheer audacity of the Schnee Mages to not preserve their art in the form of books is simply preposterous! What is the point of knowledge if it isn't preserved?!" Oobleck ranted.

"Sorry, I have strong opinions on these matters, but! That doesn't matter. I've managed to create a rift into the dimension created by the Schnee Vampire, through a little bit of backward working. However, I must warn you, the dimension made by this vampire is unlike anything I have ever seen."

"What exactly do you mean by that?" Jaune asked, grabbing his sword and shield.

"I mean to say that, where you're going is completely uncharted territory. If you aren't careful, you run the risk of being overrun by things of which, we have no archives of." Oobleck warned, his tone grave. A stark contrast from his earlier cheery one.

"Archived or not, we chose to become huntsman and huntresses. If it means going up against the unknown, it's what we chose in the end." Pyrrha spoke up, laying her hand on Jaune's shoulder. She could feel the tension in his shoulders fade, as they both faced the riftmaster.

"Very well then. Take these then." Oobleck said, bringing out two keys. "These are rift keys, with a significant amount of aura, you can use these to create a rift. Simply place the key next to a surface and turn it and you shall be transported to your destination via one of my rifts!"

Grabbing it and placing it next to a wall, she used the key and as Oobleck said, a blue rift was created. Much to her surprise however, the key immediately started cracking once Pyrrha made the rift.

"Oh, I forgot to say, these rift keys aren't exactly the most stable but as long as you don't do anything wasteful with the two, you will be just fine! Happy hunting!"

"Thank you Dr. Oobleck. Are you ready Jaune?"

"Ready as I'm ever going to be. Thank you Dr. Oobleck."

"The pleasure is all mine, now show those Grimm the true might of knowledge!" Oobleck said, with a confident smile.

Obliging his wishes, Pyrrha looked at Jaune one more time. Despite it being only a week since they first met, Pyrrha could see just how far Jaune had come. Where there had once been fear and nervousness for the unknown, now lay courage and confidence, that even if his skills may not be the best, he would still try his hardest.

**For that, Pyrrha would always be proud.**


End file.
